Effect of Health Education on Improving Elderly Awareness Regarding Coronavirus and its Variants

Background: Coronavirus is naturally mutating over time, producing new variants with genetic changes, it is an airborne virus, that causes illnesses varying in severity, mortality rate rises in the age groups above 60 years. Aim: To evaluate the effect of health education on improving elderly awareness regarding Coronavirus and its variants in selected geriatric homes. Design: A quasi-experimental design was used. Setting: This study was conducted at five geriatric homes in Elgeza governorate in Egypt; and involved 120 elderlies. Tools for Data Collection: Three tools were used: I: A structured self-administrated questionnaire sheet included the elderly: a) Socio-demographic characteristics, b) Medical history, c) Coronavirus and its variants Knowledge assessment questionnaire, d) Source of elderly information questionnaire, II: Elderly self-reported attitudes questionnaire, III: Elderly self-reported behavior practices questionnaire, consisted of four parts, a)Elderly self-reported behavior practices questionnaire, b) Self-reported hand washing practice. c)Self-reported face mask wearing and take off and d) Self-reported sneezing and coughing technique Results: The mean age was 65.39±3, there was an improvement in the satisfactory knowledge total percentage post-health education compared with pre-health education with a statistically significant difference, more than one-third had an unsatisfactory self-reported performance of hand washing, wearing off and take off face mask, coughing and sneezing performance pre-health education which turned to satisfactory self-reported performance for the majority of the elderly under the study post- health education with a highly statistically significant difference. Conclusion: Elderly knowledge reported practices and attitudes toward Coronavirus and its variants improved after delivering health education compared to pre-health education. Recommendations: Provide further health education to improve the elderly awareness regarding Coronavirus and its variants for positive awareness, especially in crowded settings such as geriatric homes, elderly clubs, and places for warships (mosques and churches).