Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on pharmacy students: A comprehensive survey

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused numerous changes in all aspects of human life and behavior, especially in the education system. Because of these reasons, our study aimed to evaluate the approaches and attitudes of pharmacy faculty students to the COVID-19 pandemic as a survey study. This study is an analytical cross-sectional study. It was conducted with the online questionnaire technique. The questionnaire form consists of 5 different sections, and the participants were asked questions aiming to determine the level of knowledge, behavioral patterns, and approaches to online education of pharmacy faculty students against the COVID-19 pandemic, along with socio-demographic questions. 151 pharmacy students, 99 (65.6%) female and 52 (34.4%) male, participated in our study. When the participants with COVID-19 infection were asked about their post-infection approach, 31 (50%) of the participants stated that "no change in the ways of protection", 20 (32.3%) felt the need for more protection, and 11 (17.7%) also announced that he had loosened the protection measures. It has been shown that there is an increase in students’ anxiety during the pandemic. In addition, it was determined that a high rate of vaccination and vaccines were relied upon. Our data show that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about some changes in the attitudes and behaviors of pharmacy students. Time will tell the long-term results of this study, in which we showed how these changes caused by the pandemic affect pharmacy students in the short term.