Knowledge, Attitude, and Perception of COVID-19 among Maritime Workers in the United Kingdom and Nigeria during the First Wave of the Pandemic

In this study, knowledge, attitude and perception (KAP) of maritime workers’ towards COVID-19 during the rapid outbreak in Nigeria and the UK were examined. The study participants completed a self-developed online KAP questionnaire prepared by the convenience sampling method. The knowledge questionnaire comprised questions regarding the clinical characteristics and prevention of COVID-19. The assessments regarding the maritime workers’ attitudes and perceptions towards COVID-19 included questions on preventive measures such as wearing masks on the ships and the attitude towards continuous trade with the Chinese communities. A multiple logistic regression analysis was done using SPSS Statistics version 23.0 to analyse the results of the two groups. The three explanatory variables, gender, residence and age used in the two models applied were not significant predictors of the participants’ knowledge, attitude and perception about COVID-19. The odds ratio was small, except for the age group, which was 6.72 in the first model. This implies that the odds of having knowledge about COVID-19 during the pandemic were 6.72 times higher for the older age group. The odds ratios were generally low for attitude and perception about COVID-19, as shown in Table 4. Participants had considerable knowledge about COVID-19 and could stay healthy during the first wave of the novel coronavirus in 2019 because of the policies and measures imposed by the governments of Nigeria and the United Kingdom to curtail the spread of COVID-19.