Abstract
BACKGROUND: Ethiopia has taken strict preventive measures against COVID-19 to control its spread, to protect citizens, and ensure their wellbeing. Employee's adherence to preventive measures is influenced by their knowledge, perceived susceptibility, severity, benefit, barrier, cues to action, and self-efficacy. Therefore, this study investigated the predictors of COVID-19 prevention practice using the Health Belief Model among employees in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2020. METHODS: Multicentre cross-sectional study design was used. A total of 628 employees selected by systematic sampling method were included in this study. Data were collected using a pretested self-administered questionnaire. Summary statistics of a given data for each variable were calculated. Logistic regression model was used to measure the association between the outcome and the predictor variable. Statistical significance was declared at p-value<0.05. Direction and strength of association were expressed using OR and 95% CI. RESULTS: From a total of 628 respondents, 432 (68.8%) of them had poor COVID-19 prevention practice. Three hundred ninety-one (62.3%), 337 (53.7%), 312 (49.7), 497 (79.1%), 303 (48.2%) and 299 (52.4%) of the respondents had high perceived susceptibility, severity, benefit, barrier, cues to action and self-efficacy to COVID-19 prevention practice, respectively. Employees with a low level of perceived barriers were less likely to have a poor practice of COVID-19 prevention compared to employees with a high level of perceived barrier [AOR = 0.03, 95% CI (0.01,0.05)]. Similarly, employees with low cues to action and employees with a low level of self-efficacy were practiced COVID prevention measures to a lesser extent compared those with high cues to action and high level of self-efficacy [AOR = 0.05, 95% CI (0.026,0.10)] and [AOR = 0.08, 95% CI (0.04,0.14)], respectively. CONCLUSION: The proportion of employees with poor COVID-19 prevention was high. Income, perceived barrier, cues to action, and self-efficacy were significantly associated with COVID-19 prevention practice.