Abstract
OBJECTIVE: to analyze the relationship between the knowledge, prevention, attitudes and opinion of nursing professionals in adult intensive care units regarding COVID-19 and their sociodemographic and work characteristics. METHOD: cross-sectional, analytical study. 124 nursing professionals who worked in adult intensive care units after the COVID-19 pandemic were included. To measure the variables, the Awareness, Attitudes, Prevention and Perceptions of COVID-19 Outbreak among Nurses questionnaire was used. To identify differences between the groups, the following tests were used: Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U, Pearson correlation, and multiple analysis in logistic regression for each dimension. RESULTS: participants with a workplace in private institutions showed a tendency towards better scores in awareness OR=3.92 (95%CI:1.50; 10.25), in prevention OR=8.93 (95%CI:3.12; 25.565), in attitude OR=2.77 (95%CI: 1.16; 6.58) and in perception with an OR= 19.65 (95%CI: 5.85; 65.94). In attitude, male participants showed a better result with OR=3.31 (95%CI: 1.18; 9.23) and in relation to perception, those who showed the best results were those with postgraduate studies as specialists OR=7.60 (95%CI: 1.73; 33.23). CONCLUSION: working in a private institution and having a postgraduate specialization degree were related to better scores in the dimensions of the scale. BACKGROUND: (1) Years of experience presented a positive correlation with knowledge. (2) High levels of awareness, practices, prevention and opinions were obtained. (3) Professionals with specialization have higher COVID-19 KAB scores. (4) Older nursing professionals tended to have lower scores in the dimensions of the instrument (knowledge, prevention, attitude and opinion). (5) The pandemic period improves knowledge and practices in nursing.