Accessing Healthcare Services during Lockdown in an African Semi-urban Community: Influence of the Knowledge of COVID-19

Aim: Since the covid-19 pandemic began, prevention and treatment services for non-communicable diseases have been significantly interrupted. This study assessed the influence of COVID-19 knowledge on using healthcare services during the lockdown in Nigeria.

Methods: The study was a descriptive cross-sectional survey conducted in Ado-Odo Ota, local government areas, Ogun State, Nigeria using a structured questionnaire between January and February 2021. A multistage probability sampling technique was employed to collect data from 383 adults aged 20 – 60 years and the data were analyzed using IBM-SPSS version 25.0.

Results: Although all respondents (100.0%) have heard of COVID-19, only 52.2% believed it was real. The respondents displayed poor overall knowledge of COVID-19 as only 32.1% were knowledgeable about it. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, 44.9% said they visited hospitals for treatment compared to 16.2% during the lockdown. The reasons for not using hospitals include the fear of taking a COVID-19 patient (38.4%) and buying medicines from pharmacies (33.9%). Those who used herbs constituted 20.6%, 15.4% could not afford service charges, 12.0% would pray or use spiritual materials instead, and 7.3% were afraid of being infected with the disease. Only 17.9% of those knowledgeable about COVID-19 would go to the hospital during the lockdown.

Conclusion: Healthcare workers and the masses should be adequately trained on healthcare management during pandemics to avoid misconceptions about COVID-19. This will help improve access to healthcare services and promote wellbeing among the low-resource setting populations.