The Influence of Misinformation and Information on the Knowledge of Precautionary Measures Against Covid 19 in Delta State, Nigeria

The outbreak of COVID 19 pandemic in December 2019, from Wahum China had resulted to huge infection of the disease and death. The rate of infection and subsequent death rate had led to its declaration as pandemic. Many countries across the global community are facing unprecedented challenges as a result of the COVID 19 pandemic. Nigeria are not left out, there is urgent need to understand the public awareness of COVID19 at this critical moment. This study investigated the knowledge, attitude, behavior and practices towards COVID 19 precautionary measure in Delta State. The study adopted an online survey about information and misinformation of COVID19 pandemic. The study investigated all social media to understand the impact on information and misinformation of COVID 19. The data was collected using a structured questionnaire with a reliability coefficient of 0.70, the collected data was analysed using descriptive statistics of simple percentage, mean and standard deviation and inferential statistics of ANOVA was also used to test the hypothesis at a significance level of 0.05. The finding showed that less than 50% (average) of sample population had good knowledge of practice of COVID 19 prevention management practice. They are unaware about information of misinformation of COVID 19 pandemic. No significance difference was found between the population behaviour, attitude, knowledge and practice of COVID 19 prevention protocol, the level of information was low due to their belief in social demographic factor about the disease in Delta state. The acceptability of information was bugged down by misconception and social demographic belief, hence it was concluded that information knowledge about the pandemic was poor hence the high rate of the pandemic in the study area and it was recommended that COVID 19 education need to be enhanced to re-orient the respondents against the disease.