RESUMEN
As the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) continues to occur in small outbreaks in Saudi Arabia, we aimed to assess the knowledge, attitudes and intended practices of healthcare workers (HCWs) during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic and compare worry levels with previous findings during the MERS-CoV outbreak in 2015. We sent an adapted version of our previously published MERS-CoV questionnaire to the same cohort of HCWs at a tertiary hospital in Saudi Arabia. About 40% of our sample had previous experience with confirmed or suspected MERS-CoV patients, and those had a significantly higher knowledge score (13.16 ± 2.02 vs. 12.58 ± 2.27, P = 0.002) and higher adherence to protective hygienic practices (2.95 ± 0.80 vs. 2.74 ± 0.92, P = 0.003). The knowledge scores on COVID-19 were higher in the current cohort than the previous MERS-CoV outbreak cohort (68% vs. 79.7%, P < 0.001). HCWs from the current cohort who felt greater anxiety from COVID-19 compared to MERS-CoV were less likely to have been exposed to MERS-CoV infected/suspected cases (odds ratio (OR) = 0.646, P = 0.042) and were less likely to have attended the hospital awareness campaign on COVID-19 (OR = 0.654, P = 0.035). We concluded that previous experience with MERS-CoV was associated with increased knowledge and adherence to protective hygienic practices, and reduction of anxiety towards COVID-19.