Cross-Sectional Study on Awareness and Knowledge of COVID-19 Among Senior pharmacy Students

Abstract

Extraordinary actions have been implemented in an effort to control the rapid spread of the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic in Egypt. People's adherence to control measures is influenced by their knowledge, attitudes and practices towards the disease. Therefore, in the present study we assessed pharmacy senior students' knowledge, attitudes and practices towards the COVID-19 pandemic. An online questionnaire was created and it consisted of 12 questions testing their knowledge about COVID-19 clinical characteristics, transmission routes and prevention and control steps. Among senior pharmacy students (n = 238), 70% were females and 63% were living in greater Cairo. Their main source of information included social media (70%), published articles (48%) and television (48%). The overall correct knowledge score was 83%. Most of the students displayed a good COVID-19 knowledge level (72.5% of the students). The students were least informed when trying to answer questions about hyper-coagulation, as a major cause for death in patients with severe COVID-19, and about the timings on the necessity to wear masks. Assessment of students' attitudes and practices towards COVID-19 reflected that 87% of them were confident that health care teams and scientists could win the fight against the virus. In addition, 72% of students agreed that COVID-19 will be controlled successfully. The greater the students' knowledge, the more confident they felt that COVID-19 will be controlled successfully (OR 2.2, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.03-4.72). Good behavioral practice towards COVID-19 control was confirmed when 87% of students answered that they didn't go out to any crowded place. Females were 3.6 times (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.03-3.11) more likely to avoid going out than males. Bad behavioral practice became evident when approximately 50% of students admitted that they did not wear masks when they left their house. Therefore, more efforts should be taken to protect future pharmacists from this pandemic.

Factors Affecting Infection Control Behaviors to Prevent COVID-19: An Online Survey of Nursing Students in Anhui, China in March and April 2020

“…This present study showed that 71.22% of the students wore masks, gloves, and goggles. Only about 50% of the participants were willing to wear face masks in a previous study [ 13 ]. The difference may be due to the rapid depletion of masks since the coronavirus pandemic.…”

“…The correlation between students’ knowledge, attitudes, and practice shows that sufficient knowledge and positive attitudes are affecting their actions against COVID-19. Knowledge is a prerequisite for establishing positive attitudes and promoting positive behaviors [ 13 ], although eHealth literacy can promote the acquisition and application of online health information to adopt a positive attitude and conduct health-promoting activities. Therefore, for nurse undergraduates, it is crucial to provide emergency disease training, increase eHealth literacy courses, and improve the curriculum with courses such as epidemiology and new emerging diseases.…”

“…Some previous studies have analyzed the knowledge and attitudes of students from Indonesia [ 11 ], Pakistan [ 12 ], Egypt [ 13 ], Jordan [ 14 ], and Spain [ 15 ]. However, no articles have analyzed factors influencing COVID-19 preventive behavior among nursing students in China, and no study has found the association between electronic literacy and preventive behavior.…”

Awareness about Covid 19 Pandemic and its Social Impacts on Normal Human Lifestyle Among Chennai Population

“…SARS Corona viruses in 2002 and 2003 triggered extreme Severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreaks in Guangdong Province, China (Modenese and Gobba, 2020). In the same way, MERS Cov viruses were responsible for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome outbreaks in 2012 which happened primarily in the Middle East Countries (Hamza et al, 2020;Gambhir, 2020). Following their origin, The SARS Cov 2 viruses have infected more than 5.1 million people residing over 188 countries and territories (Angelantonio et al, 2020).…”

“…The two severe forms of Corona viruses are zoonotic in origin and cause fatal illness in affected people (Hamza et al, 2020;Gambhir, 2020). SARS Corona viruses in 2002 and 2003 triggered extreme Severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreaks in Guangdong Province, China (Modenese and Gobba, 2020).…”