COVID-19 Preventive Behaviors among Adolescent Girls in Bangladesh
Adolescence is a stage of transition of life that affected the physical and psychological development of health by the pandemic COVID-19. Throughout the world, in this pandemic period affected public health to maintain preventive measures such as isolation, social distance and lockdown. Preventive behaviors specially for adolescents, who have to spend much time in school plays a vital role to prevent the spread of infection in the community through transmission in schools. Objective: To assess the COVID-19 preventive behaviors among adolescent girls in Bangladesh. Method: A descriptive correlational study design was used. The sample size consisted of 102 adolescent girls and convenience sampling technique was used. Data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation to describe the sample characteristics and inferential statistics such as t-test, correlation, ANOVA to examine the relationship among socio-demographic characteristics, health related characteristics and COVID-19 preventive behaviors of the participants. Results: The results showed that participants reported moderate levels of COVID-19 preventive behaviors (3.72 ± .426). There was statistically significant relationship among covid-19 preventive behaviors with the participants residence (p < .01), sources of information (p < .01), parent’s education (p <.05) and knowing symptoms of COVID-19 (p < .01). Conclusion: This study suggests the necessity of developing educational and supportive interventions programs with more focus on those who live in rural areas, have parents with little or no formal education, have fewer opportunities to access information sources, and who are unaware of the symptoms of COVID-19 in order to increase awareness and practice COVID-19 preventive behaviors.
Keywords: Preventive Behaviors, Covid-19, Adolescents
