TYPE Original Research PUBLISHED 15 June 2023 DOI 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1100335 OPEN ACCESS EDITED BY Bach Tran, Hanoi Medical University, Vietnam REVIEWED BY Seyedmohammad Mirhosseini, Shahroud University of Medical Sciences, Iran Awoke Keleb, Wollo University, Ethiopia *CORRESPONDENCE Thoa Le thoale@ump.edu.vn Nguyen Tien Huy tienhuy@nagasaki-u.ac.jp † These authors have contributed equally to this work and share first authorship RECEIVED 16 November 2022 ACCEPTED 22 May 2023 PUBLISHED 15 June 2023 CITATION Le T, Le TTB, Van Truong L, Luu MN, Tran Minh Duc N, Makram AM, Van Dat T and Huy NT (2023) Knowledge, attitude, and perception regarding COVID-19-related prevention practice among residents in Vietnam: a cross-sectional study. Front. Public Health 11:1100335. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1100335 COPYRIGHT © 2023 Le, Le, Van Truong, Luu, Tran Minh Duc, Makram, Van Dat and Huy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Knowledge, attitude, and perception regarding COVID-19-related prevention practice among residents in Vietnam: a cross-sectional study Thoa Le 1 * † , Trang T. B. Le 1† , Le Van Truong 2 , Mai Ngoc Luu 3 , Nguyen Tran Minh Duc 4 , Abdelrahman M. Makram 5 , Truong Van Dat 1 and Nguyen Tien Huy 6 * 1 University of Medicine and Pharmacy at Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 2 Traditional Medicine Hospital of Ministry of Public Security, Hanoi, Vietnam, 3 Department of Internal Medicine, University of Medicine and Pharmacy at Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 4 Faculty of Medicine, University of Medicine and Pharmacy at Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 5 School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom, 6 School of Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan Background: Vietnam was one of the countries pursuing the goal of “Zero-COVID” and had effectively achieved it in the first three waves of the pandemic. However, the spread of the Delta variant was outbreak first in Vietnam in late April 2021, in which Ho Chi Minh City was the worst affected. This study surveyed the public’s knowledge, attitude, perception, and practice (KAPP) toward COVID-19 during the rapid rise course of the outbreak in Ho Chi Minh City. Methods: This cross-sectional survey was conducted from 30th September to 16th November 2021, involving 963 residents across the city. We asked residents a series of 21 questions. The response rate was 76.6%. We set a priori level of significance at α = 0.05 for all statistical tests. Results: The residents’ KAPP scores were 68.67% ± 17.16, 77.33% ± 18.71, 74.7% ± 26.25, and 72.31% ± 31, respectively. KAPP scores of the medical staff were higher than the non-medical group. Our study showed positive, medium–strong Pearson correlations between knowledge and practice (r = 0.337), attitude and practice (r = 0.405), and perception and practice (r = 0.671; p < 0.05). We found 16 rules to estimate the conditional probabilities among KAPP scores via the association rule mining method. Mainly, 94% confident probability of participants had {Knowledge=Good, Attitude=Good, Perception=Good}, as well as {Practice=Good} (in rule 9 with support of 17.6%). In opposition to around 86% to 90% of the times, participants had levels of {Perception=Fair, Practice=Poor} given with either {Attitude=Fair} or {Knowledge=Fair} (according to rules 1, 2, and rules 15, 16 with a support of 7–8%). Conclusion: In addition to the government’s directives and policies, citizens’ knowledge, attitude, perception, and practice are considered one of the critical preventive measures during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results affirmed the good internal relationship among K, A, P, and P scores creating a hierarchy of healthcare educational goals and health behavior among residents. KEYWORDS knowledge, attitude, perception, practice, COVID-19, Vietnam Frontiers in Public Health 01 frontiersin.org