Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic among Medical Students in a Public University: A Study Protocol

Tengku Amatullah Madeehah Tengku Mohd ,Sarah Saharudin,Arni Affandi,Shasha Sheikh,Mohamed Fakhri Abu Baharin,Izlyn Izani,Nurin Norhakimi,Humaira Mahadi,Amalin Muhammad,Zairina A Rahman,Munirah Ghazali,Nizam Baharom,Hafiz Jaafar,Nurin Zaidi,Amirah Azzeri,Aza Sherin Mohamad Yusuff,Dzulkhairi Mohd Rani ,Syahidatul Sufyan ,Nurain Amirah Razi ,Nadeeya Mohamad Nor ,Syazana Aisyah Azlan ,A Anuar

doi:10.33102/uij.vol33no3.322

Tengku Amatullah Madeehah Tengku Mohd , Sarah Saharudin + Show 20 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.33102/uij.vol33no3.322

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Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a huge impact towards the teaching and learning activities in medical schools. Due to the outbreak, the curricular activities were shifted to a mainly digitised version of learning format. The purpose of this paper is to present the study design and methodology of a population-based survey on the impact of COVID-19 among medical students. The survey aims to investigate the level of knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) on the COVID-19 pandemic, the online learning readiness and psychological status among medical students in Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM). A universal sampling method will be used that involve 475 medical students from Year 1 to Year 6 in USIM. The data collection will be conducted through an online survey. The questionnaire consists of three components: the study of KAP on COVID-19, the online learning readiness and psychological impact of COVID-19 pandemic. Both of the KAP and online learning readiness questionnaire will be adopted, adapted and validated from previous research and will be based on a local study. As for the depression, anxiety and stress, the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS) questionnaire will be used. Duration of data collection is expected to be one month, and findings are expected to be ready by three months from the last data collection date. The exposure variables include sociodemographic factors and years of study, while the outcomes are the KAP scores, online learning readiness level, and DASS scores. Relationships between the outcomes and associated factors will be analysed once data collection is completed.

Highlights

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is a global health concern approaching 54 million cases and 1.3 million deaths by early November of 2020 (Jaafar & Azzeri, 2020)
There is a lack of studies that report on online learning readiness and psychological impact especially among medical students
We propose a study to determine the impact of COVID-19 among medical students and describe the study protocol here

Summary

Introduction

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is a global health concern approaching 54 million cases and 1.3 million deaths by early November of 2020 (Jaafar & Azzeri, 2020). In the world of education, global academic calendar has been thrown into a state of disarray by the COVID-19 outbreak which cause all public and private institutions at all levels of education including higher learning to adjourn all classes and lectures. As an alternative, they were suggested to pursue classes and learning using any suitable online platforms beginning in April 2020 in order to reduce mass gathering of students (Yusuf, 2020). The primary objective of this study is to determine the association between the sociodemographic factors with 1) the knowledge, attitudes and practices on COVID-19 pandemic, 2) the online learning readiness and 3) psychological well-being among medical students in USIM

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