Vol. 10, Special Issue 12 (2021)

Author(s):
Danimireddy Geetha Ramya, Dr. MS Chaitanya Kumari, Dr. N Deborah Messiana and Dr. S Prasanthi

Abstract:
The Corona virus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic gripped the world in shock with the sudden outbreak in all the countries. Timely access to information is a crucial requirement for decision making of the people during the times of health emergencies. Therefore, the present study was undertaken to know the information needs of the rural respondents on COVID-19 in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh. Thirty rural respondents from three villages of Guntur district are selected for the study and data was collected using pre-tested interview schedule. Simple random sampling technique and statistical tools were applied for the study. The study revealed that majority (53.33%) of the respondents were in the age group of 27 to 36 years while, thirty per cent were illiterates and 96.67 per cent possessed mobile phone. Majority (86.67%) of the respondents belonged to nuclear families. Majority (73.33%) of the respondents lives in medium families with 4 to 6 family members. Most (76.67%) of the respondents had frequent extension contact with Asha workers and Govt. volunteers gathered information from news channels (96.67%) and family members (93.33%) during COVID-19 pandemic time. Home remedies (93.33%) followed by vaccination (86.67%), immunity boosting foods (76.67%), myths & misconceptions (73.33%), mode of transmission (56.67%), symptoms of COVID-19 (50.00%) and Standard Operating Procedures (43.33%) were the expressed information needs of the rural respondents.