Evaluation of preparedness of healthcare student volunteers against Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in Makkah, Saudi Arabia: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

AimTo assess the knowledge and attitude of senior medical, dental, nursing and pharmacy students toward Middle East respiratory syndrome-corona virus (MERS-CoV) in Saudi Arabia.Subjects and methodsA cross-sectional survey using a 21-item questionnaire was conducted for a 3-month period from November 2015–January 2016 in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. The questionnaire was designed to evaluate students’ understanding and perception of MERS-CoV. An ANOVA test was used to determine the association of study discipline and academic year with the student knowledge score on MERS.ResultsA total of 364 students were assessed during the study. The majority (62%) of the participants were in the 20–22-year age group. More than half (53%) were pharmacy students followed by (22%) medical students. More than two thirds (71%) of the participants were aware that MERS is caused by the coronavirus. More than half (59%) of the participants believed that MERS can be transmitted through direct or indirect contact with infected camels. A statistically significant association was reported between the study discipline and mean knowledge score (p < 0.0001) with medical students achieving an overall better knowledge score compared with students from other study disciplines.ConclusionOverall, students had good knowledge about MERS epidemiology, transmission and the recommended protective measures. However, students expressed their reluctance to work in healthcare facilities with inadequate MERS infection control isolation policies.

Knowledge, attitudes and practices about Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) among Birzeit University students: A cross-sectional study

“…The relatively low percentage of participants with a good knowledge level in this study is in line with ndings of a study conducted among health care workers which reported that Knowledge and perceptions of COVID-19 varied across different categories of health care workers but in general the participants had a poor knowledge level (Bhagavathula et al 2020a). Nevertheless, the percentage of participants with a good knowledge level is lower when compared to studies conducted among different segments of the society against MERS (Kharma et al 2015;Elrggal et al 2018) and against COVID 19 (Zhong et al 2020;Wolf et al 2020;Zhang et al 2020a) where the participants have claimed good knowledge regarding transmission, symptoms and treatment of COVID-19.…”

Pandemic related Health literacy – A Systematic Review of literature in COVID-19, SARS and MERS pandemics

“…For attitudes about pandemics, worry/fear/helplessness about pandemic (13, 14, 22, 28, 31, 33, 49, 51, 52, 60, 61, 63, 65, 68, 72, 76-78, 81, 83, 84), confidence in governments' ability to manage pandemic (13,23,28,30,33,41,61,63,65,68,70,77,78,82) and perceived severity of infection as a public health problem (13,29,39,41,44,45,59,65,70,72) was most commonly assessed. (Table 3) For practices in pandemics, behaviours related to mask utilization (14,16,23,26,28,30,32,33,35,38,40,48,59,61,63,65,70,73,80,82,(84)(85)…”

A Comparative Analysis of Factors Influencing Two Outbreaks of Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in Saudi Arabia and South Korea

“…Given that this virus is most commonly spread by respiratory droplets from infected individuals, this is not a surprising finding. While the majority of participants in a recent Saudi Arabian study among medical students were aware that infection prevention was ideally through wearing face masks and public information, 53% of participants were unaware of infection control isolation policies in their hospitals, if an outbreak arose [34]. Furthermore, nosocomial transmission is made worse by the presence of MERS-CoV "superspreaders", who transmit the disease at a significantly higher rate than the average host [35].…”

“…This included where to seek medical attention and protective measures individuals could take to protect themselves from infection, such as face masks. In the case of MERS, there is a belief that lack of knowledge among medical staff and affected communities could be a risk factor for disease containment [34]. With a combination of hospital and community outbreaks, many have suggested that stronger implementation of proper decontamination procedures could reduce outbreak severity and length [8,42].…”