International Journal of Public Health Science (IJPHS) Vol. 12, No. 2, June 2023, pp. 475~485 ISSN: 2252-8806, DOI: 10.11591/ijphs.v12i2.22423  475 Journal homepage: http://ijphs.iaescore.com Knowledge and attitude towards COVID-19 among adult people in Bangladesh: evidence from an online survey Md. Shahjahan 1 , M. Mazharul Islam 2 , Md Kamrul Hossain 3 , Md. Ruhul Amin 4 , Mostafa Kamal 5 , Mohammad Saiful Islam 6 1 Department of Public Health, Daffodil International University, Dhaka, Bangladesh 2 Department of Statistics, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman 3 Department of General Educational Development, Daffodil International University, Dhaka, Bangladesh 4 Bangladesh Medical Research Council (BMRC), Dhaka, Bangladesh 5 Department of Business Administration, Daffodil International University, Dhaka, Bangladesh 6 Planning, Monitoring and Research, Directorate General of Health Services, Dhaka, Bangladesh Article Info ABSTRACT Article history: Received Aug 29, 2022 Revised Feb 18, 2023 Accepted Mar 7, 2023 The objective of this study was to examine the levels and determinants of knowledge and attitudes toward COVID-19 among adult people in Bangladesh, using data from an online survey, conducted in May 2021. Descriptive and inferential statistical analysis were performed to extract findings from data. The survey covered 993 respondents. A high level (78.4%) of effective knowledge and positive attitude (78.6%) were observed among the Bangladeshi people. More than eighty percent of the respondents could correctly mention at least one important symptom, mode of transmission, and preventive measures of COVID-19. Good knowledge and positive attitudes were found to be significantly higher among males, living in Dhaka city, having a higher level of education, health professionals, and the wealthiest people. Knowledge about COVID-19 has significant association with positive attitude of people towards COVID-19. Despite the high level of knowledge and positive attitudes, there still prevails some misconceptions among a group of people, as one-third of the respondents opined that COVID-19 is a divine punishment and 13% were in favor of keeping it secrete if COVID-19 infection happen to them. The findings underscore the need for more educational program and behavior change communication (BCC) for the subgroups of the population that has been identified with poor knowledge and negative attitudes towards COVID-19. Keywords: Adult people Attitude Bangladesh COVID-19 Knowledge This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA license. Corresponding Author: Md. Shahjahan Department of Public Health, Daffodil International University Daffodil Smart City, Birulia 1216, Bangladesh E-mail: drshahjahan@daffodilvarsity.edu.bd 1. INTRODUCTION COVID-19 emerged as a major public health crisis across the world in recent times. It originated in the Wuhan region of China in December 2019 and rapidly spread all over the world within a very short time. In March 2020 the WHO declared it a pandemic [1]. COVID-19 is a highly infectious disease that can cause many illnesses including the common cold to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) [2], [3]. Fever, dry cough, breathing difficulty, muscle or body aches, fatigue, myalgia, and dyspnea are the primary clinical symptoms for COVID-19 [4], [5]. Beside these,sore throat, diarrhea, lossing taste and smell, and arthralgia are also symptoms [6]–[8]. Studies have shown that COVID-19 spread among people through sneezing or coughing or contact with the person who is infected [9], [10]. According to the WHO, the possible modes of