Peak months of pandemic's first-wave in India: a cross-sectional assessment of knowledge, attitudes and practice towards COVID-19 among internet-savvy individuals.

Background: A successful pandemic response in populated geographies and resource-limited settings like India relies on informed decision making. Knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) studies performed during these times are crucial to illustrate how well a community adopts prevention strategies.

Objective: The present study, conducted during the peak months of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, aimed at assessing the KAP levels of internet-savvy Indians.

Methods: This observational cross-sectional study was conducted between 20 May and 10 October 2020. We employed a self-reported questionnaire using Google Forms, containing two parts-demographics and KAP evaluation-with the latter having three subsections of 10, 5, and 5 questions each. Data from completed questionnaires were extracted and exported from Google Forms and coded. Descriptive statistics and first-order analysis were conducted. Binary logistic regression was performed with a 95% confidence interval to determine significant associations between categorical dependent and independent variables.

Results: We received responses from 1154 participants (58.84% male). Most respondents had good knowledge of the disease transmission course (92.55%), showed seriousness towards the emerging illness (91.07%), had a good attitude towards personal hygiene and physical distancing (93.76%), and had followed good safety/hygienic practices (93.76%). Good attitudes differed significantly between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu provinces (OR 1.053; 95% CI 0.588-1.886; p  = 0.0439). The survey participants did not show any significant gender differences in any question types ( p  > 0.05).

Conclusions: The results obtained add significant value to the existing KAP literature on COVID-19 in India and may help policymakers achieve public compliance with preventive measures.