Dataset of knowledge, attitude, practices and psychological implications of healthcare workers in Pakistan during COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a global health emergency and has a huge impact on the health care workers, especially on their mental health. The dataset presented was an assessment of COVID-19 related knowledge, attitude, practices and its effects on the mental health of frontline healthcare workers in Pakistan. The data were collected using a snowball sampling technique. A questionnaire was developed assessing sociodemographic characteristics (6 items), knowledge (11 items), attitude (5 items), practices (6 items), information sources (1 item) and psychological implications (12 items) and distributed using online tools. The dataset includes 476 healthcare workers in Pakistan. The dataset will help to prevent and curb the spread of COVID-19 among health workers and contribute to policymakers. Furthermore, our dataset provides detailed insights into different risk factors of psychological problems, and it may be served as the reference for various in-depth surveys.


a b s t r a c t
The COVID-19 pandemic has created a global health emergency and has a huge impact on the health care workers, especially on their mental health. The dataset presented was an assessment of COVID-19 related knowledge, attitude, practices and its effects on the mental health of frontline healthcare workers in Pakistan. The data were collected using a snowball sampling technique. A questionnaire was developed assessing sociodemographic characteristics (6 items), knowledge (11 items), attitude (5 items), practices (6 items), information sources (1 item) and psychological implications (12 items) and distributed using online tools. The dataset includes 476 healthcare workers in Pakistan. The dataset will help to prevent and curb the spread of COVID-19 among health workers and contribute to policymakers. Furthermore, our dataset provides detailed insights into different risk factors of psychological problems, and it may be served as the reference for various in-depth surveys.
© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license.

Specifications
• The current dataset provides information about the knowledge, attitude and practices of health care workers towards COVID-19. It also describes the significant risk factors associated with mental health issues of healthcare workers due to COVID-19. • All researchers, psychological experts/institutes, public health experts/institutes, and policymakers can get benefit from our data to understand the essential knowledge and compliance with safe practices of healthcare workers from Pakistan. The data can also support other countries around the world to understand the mental health challenges of healthcare workers during COVID-19 pandemic. • The data will be valuable for the researchers who want to determine the association between COVID-19 related knowledge, attitude and practices of healthcare workers and the onset of psychological disorders. This dataset can be utilized by other researchers to apply statistical modelling for identifying characteristics that could bring new perceptions about the pandemic and how to fight it. • Analysis of dataset is beneficial for the policymakers and hospital administrations to evaluate the primary cause of psychological illnesses among healthcare workers, thus helping to plan preventive strategies. All institutions involved in public health and infection control can benefit from these data.

Data Description
The dataset gives insightful information about coronavirus-related knowledge, attitude, practices, risk perceptions, and psychological implications among Pakistani healthcare workers dur- ing COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the various psychological implications among healthcare workers due to prolonged working hours and coping with the high workload along with trauma and moral dilemmas [1] . A total of 476 responses from healthcare workers were collected during the peak season of the outbreak in Pakistan. The collected raw data used for each table was stored in a Microsoft Excel Worksheet (.xlsx) format. The dataset further divided into three primary groups: (i) sociodemographic characteristics of healthcare workers including age, gender, profession, marital status, experience, siblings ( Table 1 )

Experimental Design, Materials and Methods
To collect data, we used a descriptive online survey design to assess the knowledge, attitude, practices, and psychological implications among the Pakistani healthcare workers during COVID-19 pandemic. A questionnaire was developed, which included different questions, comprising sociodemographic characteristics, knowledge, attitude, and practices. Besides, the assessment of psychological burden or workplace-related stress was evaluated separately by using different questions. The items of the questionnaire were taken from previous research on COVID-19. After  pre-testing, the online link of the questionnaire was generated using Google forms and shared among potential health workers using online tools like WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, etc. They were requested to forward the link to other health care workers dealing with COVID-19 patients. The knowledge, attitude and practices related questions were retrieved from the literature [ 2 , 3 , 6 ]. Similarly, the psychological implication-based items of the healthcare workers during COVID-19 pandemic were taken from the previous studies [ 4 , 5 ]. To assess participants knowledge towards COVID-19 used in dataset included three subcategories: nature of the virus, risk of transmission and possible treatment. Nature of the virus included the necessary knowledge about the genetic makeup of COVID-19, and it was measured with three items. Risk of transmission of COVID-19 was measured with six items. Treatment strategies of COVID-19 patients were assessed by using two items. The attitude of respondents was measured with five items which included, the impact of lockdown, availability of personal protective equipment, and safety training before this outbreak. The knowledge and attitude questions were responded based on Yes or No with an extra option "I do not know".

Fig. 1. Source of information about COVID-19
Six items measured the safety practices of healthcare workers in COVID-19 outbreak by using frequency scale method including handwashing frequency, frequency of interaction with COVID-19 patients, following the donning and doffing steps and education session for the general community. Besides, twelve questions which intimated the mental health of frontline health care workers during this pandemic were measured by using the dichotomous scale ("Yes" or "No"), and explained the work-related stress, shortage of personal protective equipment's, overburden healthcare setup and need of psychological support. The sociodemographic characteristics, knowledge, attitude, practices and psychological implication of survey questions were analyzed using descriptive statistics i.e., frequencies and percentages.

Ethics Statement
The study was approved by ethical review committee of Department of Life Sciences, University of Management and Technology, Lahore. After disclosing the purpose and nature of the study, informed consent was obtained from each participant .

Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships which have, or could be perceived to have, influenced the work reported in this article.