Participants’ characteristics
A total 220 patients completed the survey questionnaire. The demographic
characteristics of the study participants are shown in Table 1. Of all
the patients, 108 (49.1 %) were female and 112 (50.9 %) were male.
4.5% of the patients in the study were between 18 and 35 years, 19.5%
were between 36 and 50 years, around half the patients (54,1 %) aged
between 51 to 65 and 21.8 % aged above 65 years. Most of the patients
were married and this rate was 90.5 %. The majority of the patients
involved in the study lived in the family home (98.2 %), while the rest
lived alone (1.8 %). 6.4% of the patients who participated in the
questionnaire had no literacy; about half (49.5%) were primary school
graduates, 30 % were middle-high school graduates and 14% were
university graduates. While 85% of the patients who participated in the
study were not working, 15% were active working. Table 1 also
establishes that %48.6 of the individuals had a history of one or more
chronic illnesses.
Most of the diagnoses the patients had were gastrointestinal cancers
(33.2 %) and breast cancer (26.8 %). Additionally, 41% of these
patients were metastatic; 59% were nonmetastatic. The ECOG performance
scale of 87 % of patients was 0-1; the rest 2-3.
General information about COVID-19 and considerations
on COVID-19 prevention measures
72.7% of participants claimed
that they had never heard the pandemic word before, while 24% said they
had heard it before. The most commonly expressed sources of knowledge
were the written and visual media (TV, newspaper etc.) (89%), the
internet (website, social media etc.) (6.8 %) followed by the doctors
(4.2%) (Table 2).
The first part of our survey is information questions about the COVID-19
outbreak, as the first two questions in this section are questions based
on interpretation; these first two questions are not included in the
knowledge score. The information score includes 5 questions in the first
section and 6 questions about COVID-19 protection in the second section.
As a result, we directed patients to eleven knowledge questions about
the COVID-19 pandemic. These questions are shown in table 3. When
calculating the knowledge score, only correct answers were accepted from
the three options. The total knowledge score varied between 3 to 11,
with a mean of 9.88 ± 1.55. Almost
all the participants answered the question about where the outbreak
first appeared correctly. The majority of the patients (87.3%) reported
that the virus had spread through droplets. 90% of patients reported
fever, cough and fatigue as symptoms. 90% of patients said yes to the
question of whether most patients could survive this infection with
early treatment. The majority (85.9%) said yes to the question about
whether COVID-19 disease can be more serious in those with chronic
disease such as advanced age, diabetes mellitus, hypertension and
cancer; 11.4% said they were unsure. 99% of the patients answered the
question correctly that they should avoid crowded places and close
contact with other people. While 85% of the patients who participated
in the survey thought it is beneficial to wear a mask to prevent the
transmission of the virus, 10% reported that it was not useful. 68.6%
of the patients correctly answered the question of whether people with
COVID-19 can transmit the virus to others when they do not have a fever
and cough. While 16.8% stated that they were not sure; 14.5% said it
cannot be transmitted. Our question is that children and young adults
are not affected by COVID-19, so they do not need to take action; while
86.4% stated that this statement was wrong. The majority of patients
(99.1%) responded correctly to our question that hands should be washed
at least 20 seconds to prevent contamination. 95.5% of the patients
answered the question as to how many days the people who come into
contact with someone who is infected with the coronavirus should be
observed in quarantine, saying fourteen days.