A study of knowledge, attitude and practices regarding SARS COV-2 infection and its control amongst medical students of Rama Medical College Kanpur (U.P)

Abstract

A person’s adherence to the prevention measures is essential for controlling the spread of COVID-19, which can be explain by their knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) on COVID-19. Thus, we conducted a survey to investigate the KAP on COVID-19 among the medical students of a Rama Medical College during the rapid rise of the COVID-19 outbreak.Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an emerging respiratory infection caused by a novel coronavirus called Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV- 2). The outbreak was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on January 30, 2020. The WHO has now characterized the outbreak as a pandemic. Cross-sectional surveywas conducted among the medical students from Rama medical college, in Kanpur (U.P), from 30th June to 20th July 2020, the 3 weeks. Predesigned questionnaire based online survey was used for data collection total 281 students From 3 MBBS Batches included in the study. Total 23 questions related to KAP regarding COVID-19 out of which (11 related to Knowledge, 4 related to Attitude and 8 related to Practices) scores were calculated, t-testwas used for statistical analysis.Out of the total participants (n=281), 50.2% were males while the rest were female (49.8%); the majority of them 63.3% were ≥21 years old while only 36.7% were 17-20 years old. Almost all the participants (96.8%) avoid unnecessary travel or outing during the outbreak under the lock down period due to COVID-19. Although no significant relationship was found between different genders, age-categories in terms of Attitude and practices, the male participants had higher knowledge. In addition, but gender had no significant impact on knowledge scores (P>0.05) while among age groups was not have a significant relation with attitude score (P>0.05).Positive results were seen in the study but there is constant need of updating knowledge of the health force since concepts about COVID-19 are evolving on an everyday basis. Implementingperiodic educational interventions, training programs and conducting webinars on infection control practices for COVID-19 for all health care workers and studentscan be very useful for improving awareness. Updates by the World Health Organization and government websites are best and authentic sources for health care workers to review their knowledge.