Adherence to COVID-19 Protocol : Impact of Socioeconomic Status of Market Men and Women in Ogun State, Nigeria

Adherence to COVID-19 protocol has been a serious issue in Nigeria and this has been worrisome to public health practitioners including health educators because from all indications, obeying precautionary measures has been a great challenge especially among market men and women including their customers. This study examined the impact of socioeconomic status of market men and women on adherence to COVID-19 protocol in Ogun State, Nigeria. The study adopted descriptive survey research design where structured and validated questionnaire cum interview guide were used as the instrument for data collection. Multi-stage sampling technique was adopted to select the sample for the study from the old Ijebu and Egba components of the State: Ita-Osu new market Ijebu-Ode and Oba Lipede Market Abeokuta were purposively selected for the study. In each of the market,n=250 market men and women were randomly selected using simple random sampling technique to make a total sample of n=500 in all, out of this, n=481 questionnaires were retrieved to make a total of 96.0% rate of return. The data collected was analyzed with the aid of SPSS version 21.0 windows using simple percentages, Mean, Standard Deviation, T-test, Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA), Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and regression analysis at 0.05 levels of significance. The major findings of this study were that market men and women in Ogun State possessed low level of adherence to COVID-I9 Protocol. In addition, finding also indicated that there is a significant association between gender, religious affiliation, income level, age, type of business and family structure and the level of adherence to COVID-19 preventive precautions. Based on the above, it is therefore recommended that the health educators should be more involved to disseminate information on curbing further spread of COVID-19 in Nigeria