Abstract
The COVID-19 outbreak prompted governments in many countries to enact laws and policies to combat the spread of COVID-19 at work. The Department of Employment and Labour required every worker to be screened when they arrived at work to see if they had COVID-19 symptoms. Employers used on-site screening to identify workers who were at high risk of infection to reduce the spread of COVID-19 at the workplace. Screening methods included a combination of employee temperature screening, face-to-face screening questions, and self-reporting symptoms using a daily symptom monitoring tool. With the implementation of screening tools, evaluation of their effectiveness is essential.
This study aimed to determine the compliance with the daily symptom monitoring tool by the employees of the Military Health Support Formation of the South African National Defence Force by assessing their knowledge, attitude, and practice (behaviour) towards the daily symptom monitoring tool. The following three objectives were identified for this study:
• To assess the knowledge of and attitude towards COVID-19 and the completion of the daily symptom monitoring tool,
• To assess the factors associated with compliance with the completion of the daily symptom monitoring tool,
• To determine the number of suspected COVID-19 cases identified using the daily symptom monitoring tool.
Data for the study were collected using a self-administered questionnaire. The questionnaire comprised of standardised, pre-set questions meant to collect information to address the study goals. All statistical analysis was performed using SPSS version 26. Descriptive statistics, correlation coefficient and chi-square tests were performed.
The study findings revealed that respondents had moderate (72.4%) knowledge of COVID-19 and the symptom monitoring tool, they had a moderate attitude (63.3%) towards the symptom monitoring tool and had a good practice (96.3%) of COVID-19 guidelines and the symptom monitoring tool.