Public perception of COVID-19 management and response in Nigeria: a cross-sectional survey
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Objectives: A study designed to assess the public perception of the response of government and its institutions to the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria.
Setting: Self-selecting participants throughout Nigeria completed a self-administered questionnaire through an online cross-sectional survey.
Participants: 495
Results: The majority of respondents were married (76.6%), were males (61.8%), had tertiary level education (91.0%), were public servants (36.8%), Christians (82.6%), and resident either in the Federal Capital Territory (Abuja) (49.1%) or in the South-East Region of Nigeria (36.6%). Over 95% of the respondents had heard of COVID-19 (98.8%) and knew it is a viral disease (95.4%). The government and its institutions response to the pandemic were rated as poor, with the largest rating as poor for Federal President’s Office (57.5%). Communication (50.0%) and prevention messages (43.7%) received the highest perception good rating. Female respondents and those less than 40 years generally rated the governmental responses as poor.
Conclusions/Recommendations: It is recommended that as a public-private partnership approached was efficiently used to more effectively disseminate public health communication and prevention messages, the Nigerian Government should expand this collaboration to improve the quality of services provided in other areas of COVID-19 outbreak management.
Setting: Self-selecting participants throughout Nigeria completed a self-administered questionnaire through an online cross-sectional survey.
Participants: 495
Results: The majority of respondents were married (76.6%), were males (61.8%), had tertiary level education (91.0%), were public servants (36.8%), Christians (82.6%), and resident either in the Federal Capital Territory (Abuja) (49.1%) or in the South-East Region of Nigeria (36.6%). Over 95% of the respondents had heard of COVID-19 (98.8%) and knew it is a viral disease (95.4%). The government and its institutions response to the pandemic were rated as poor, with the largest rating as poor for Federal President’s Office (57.5%). Communication (50.0%) and prevention messages (43.7%) received the highest perception good rating. Female respondents and those less than 40 years generally rated the governmental responses as poor.
Conclusions/Recommendations: It is recommended that as a public-private partnership approached was efficiently used to more effectively disseminate public health communication and prevention messages, the Nigerian Government should expand this collaboration to improve the quality of services provided in other areas of COVID-19 outbreak management.
Date Issued
2020-10-14
Date Acceptance
2020-09-28
Citation
BMJ Open, 2020, 10 (10), pp.1-7
ISSN
2044-6055
Publisher
BMJ Journals
Start Page
1
End Page
7
Journal / Book Title
BMJ Open
Volume
10
Issue
10
Copyright Statement
© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2020. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Identifier
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/10/10/e041936.info
Subjects
epidemiology
infection control
organisational development
1103 Clinical Sciences
1117 Public Health and Health Services
1199 Other Medical and Health Sciences
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2020-10-14