Abstract
Background: The Saudi Arabia was inveterate its first case of COVID-19 on the March 2nd, 2020. In responsible to the situation of spread of COVID-19, ministry of health of Saudi Arabia released many advices to its citizens in order to increase awareness and to avoid the catching the virus through infographics and TV and its official account on the social networking platform Twitter. These precautions and advices include importance of adhering to the preventive precautions for respiratory infections in general. However, it is necessary to assess the compliance of people especially parents about these precautions; no studies had been worked on this. Objectives: To assess Saudi parents' knowledge about protection against COVID-19 corona virus, to assess parent's precautions for their children and their compliance with COVID-19 control measures. Materials and Methods: In this cross sectional study, conducted in April-May 2020, in Tertiary University Medical City of 1300 beds. 700 participants were non-randomly assigned in a convenient sample. (38.6%) were males while (61.4%) were females, pre tested questionnaire was used in data collection. Results: Findings of the study indicated that Saudi parents' had a sufficient knowledge about protection against COVID-19, that (66%) of the parents had a good level of knowledge. There was no significant relation between gender, marital status, number of children and the level of knowledge, while the only significant relation was between the age and the level of knowledge (P=0.043). The result showed that the good level of knowledge is increasing with age. The results revealed a high adherence and compliance of Saudi parents toward Saudi MOH preventive measures of COVID-19 for their children, that the general percentage of parent's adherence and compliance was (90.3%). Conclusion: The level of knowledge about protection against COVID-19 was sufficient among Saudi parents in Riyadh city, Saudi Arabia. There was a significant relation between age and the level of knowledge. There was a high adherence and compliance of Saudi parents toward Saudi MOH preventive measures of COVID-19 for their children.