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

Abstract

Aim: COVID-19 the novel corona virus that has been characterized as a pandemic; as it spreads all over the world and has so far infected more than 20 million worldwide. In Palestine, the first seven cases were documented on March 5th, 2020 followed by the declaration of the state of emergency. This study aimed to assess knowledge, attitudes and practices toward COVID-19 among Birzeit University students.Subject and methods: A cross sectional study was carried out, a questionnaire was developed based on the WHO, CDC, ECDC recommendations. The questionnaire was distributed online and filled by Birzeit University students. Chi-square testing was performed to check for significant association between KAP and different sociodemographic variables. Binary logistic regression performed to identify and control the confounding factors. Data were analyzed using SPSS (version 22).Results: A total of 665 students have completed the online questionnaire. The mean age was (20.55±3.069) years. Multivariate analysis revealed that males, students from health professions and scientific faculties and those with highly educated parents had manifested a good knowledge level (GKL) about Covid -19. Regarding students’ practices, less negative practices were prompted by students from health professions faculty and the students living at the middle governorate of Palestine compared to north, south and Jerusalem dwellers. With regards to the practices, the vast majority of the participants held a positive and very cautious practice towards the COVID-19 epidemic.Conclusion: Our results revealed that students had variable knowledge regarding Covid-19 and the vast majority depended on the official media briefs in Palestine as a source of information. With regards to practices, positive and cautious practices towards the COVID-19 epidemic were carried out by the vast majority of participants.

Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices Toward Covid-19 and Associated Factors Among University Students in Mizan Tepi University, 2020

“…The study also showed that more than half (58.2%) of the students knew the correct incubation period of the disease. This finding is much lower than study from Palestine (95.8%) 16 and lowers than study from China (66.4%). 11 The possible suggestions for such variations may be due to variations of sample characteristics, in which the numbers of students from health sciences related field involved in the study from Palestine and China are more than this study.…”

“…The study showed that (47.0%) of the students had good knowledge about the Covid-19. This finding is better than studies done in Beret (41.4%) 16 and India (40%). 12 This difference could be due to difference in methods of categorizations to good and poor knowledge, in which the late Indian study used arbitrary cutoff 70% and that of the current study used the mean knowledge score as the cutoff value to dichotomize poor and good knowledge.…”

“…This finding is almost in line with studies from Indonesia (78.99%) and Palestine (78.5%) of the undergraduate students knew the correct mode of the transmission. 15,16 This finding is better than a study from India in which 68% knew the correct methods of transmission. 12 However, this finding from the current study is much lower than a study from china that 98.9% knew the correct methods of transmission.…”

Knowledge, attitude, perception, and factors associated with the risk perception of COVID‐19 among nursing college students in Japanese universities: A cross‐sectional study

“…Similar results were reported in Palestinian, Ugandan, and Iranian studies. 2 , 21 , 22 Concerning the treatment and preventive measures, wearing masks and social isolation for 14 days for someone exposed to COVID‐19 were sustained as preventive strategies by respondents. This is in agreement with reports from studies in China for wearing masks 23 and in Jordan and Saudi Arabia for social isolation.…”

Attitude and practices among nursing students toward COVID-19 prevention

“…Two studies conducted in Palestine, the first one was performed among students at Birzeit University showed that students had varying degrees of knowledge about COVID-19, and most of them relied on the official media briefs as a source of information. The majority of them carried out positive and cautious practices regarding the COVID-19 epidemic [3]. While the other study done at two colleges of nursing of Arab American and Al-Quds University revealed that students had an adequate level of knowledge about COVID-19 and negatively attitude toward it [1].…”