ISMJ

Background: The COVID-19 crisis in December 2019 as a global pandemic was followed by many disorders such as stress, anxiety and depression among different communities and occupational groups. The high incidence and mortality rates and the lack of known treatment methods indicated the need to discover knowledge, attitude and performance of the society about COVID-19. Therefore, the present study was designed to investigate the knowledge, attitude and self-care behaviors regarding COVID-19 and its relationship with anxiety in employees of universities of Bushehr in 2021.
Materials and Methods: The present study is a cross-sectional descriptive analytical study in which 287 employees of selected universities of Bushehr participated. The participants received the online 
researcher-made questionnaire of knowledge, attitude and performance about COVID-19, and Spielberger's State and Trait Anxiety Inventory. Mean, standard deviation, frequency tables and graphs were used to describe the data. For data analysis, univariate regression and hierarchical multivariate regression were performed. After data collection, the data were analyzed in SPSS version 19 software.
Results: The mean scores of participants’ knowledge, attitude and self-care performance against COVID-19 were (28.19±1.88), (13.38±1.30) and (34.26±4.02), respectively. As per anxiety, 68% of the participants had moderate to severe state anxiety and 88% had moderate to severe trait anxiety. Attitude had a significant relationship with state anxiety (P<0.001). Absolute and relative satisfaction with income was also related to state anxiety (P<0.001). However, knlowledge and self-care performance had no significant relationships with state and trait anxiety (p>0.05).
Conclusion: According to the findings of the study, although participants’ knowledge about COVID-19 was below average, they had a higher than average attitude and self-care performance and high anxiety. In fact, those participants who had a positive view toward COVID-19 had a lower level of anxiety. But knowledge and self-care were not related to their anxiety. It is suggested that health system administrators and university officials develop national health education programs to increase participants’ knowledge and reduce their anxiety about COVOD-19. Furthermore, we found that participants’ positive self-care attitude and performance during the COVID-19 pandemic is realized in the shadow of other components besides awareness. It is necessary that researchers in this field explain the role of other factors in future studies. Factors affecting the self-care attitude and performance during COVID-19 pandemic should be addressed more.