Investigation of the Cognitive Attitudes and Behaviors of Medical Post-graduates in Clinical Practice During the COVID-19 Pandemic in China.

Lei Feng,Zefeng Xie,Junhui Shen

doi:10.3389/fpubh.2021.755163

Abstract

The cognitive attitudes and behaviors of medical post-graduates may be influenced by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. A cross-sectional study was used from a questionnaire survey in hospitals affiliated with the Zhejiang University School of Medicine. Questionnaire was distributed online including demographic information, cognitive attitudes, and personal protective behaviors. Moreover, personal protective behaviors such as wearing protective equipment were compared between different academic major and gender, respectively. A total of 176 valid questionnaires were obtained. Of the medical post-graduates in this study, (1) 89.67% believed that the COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on their clinical internships, and 40.34% expressed concerns about their infection on inadequate personal protection; (2) 91.48% took personal protection in hospital and 86.36% enhanced personal hygiene; (3) There were no statistically differences in the personal protection by academic major and gender (p > 0.05). This study suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on the medical post-graduates' clinical practice, and affected their cognitive attitudes and behaviors. As such, universities and hospitals should increase pandemic prevention training and investment, provide more psychological counseling to their medical post-graduates to reduce their psychological burden, and take measures to reduce the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on their medical post-graduates' clinical practice.

Highlights

Since the World Health Organization announced in January 2020 that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is a public health emergency of international concern [1], the Chinese medical staff have demonstrated outstanding skill and dedication in striving to save lives across the country
Of the medical post-graduates who participated in this study, 89.77% believed that the COVID-19 pandemic had affected their clinical practice in different ways (Table 2)
Among these was the fact that they developed nervousness and fear due to their knowledge that the virus causing COVID-19 could be transmitted in various ways and was highly infectious

Summary

Introduction

Since the World Health Organization announced in January 2020 that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is a public health emergency of international concern [1], the Chinese medical staff have demonstrated outstanding skill and dedication in striving to save lives across the country. COVID-19 has caused unprecedented damage to the medical education system worldwide [2]. The COVID-19 pandemic puts people at risk, which poses a major challenge to medical education, because teachers must teach safely while at the same time ensuring the integrity and continuity of the medical education system. COVID-19 Pandemic for Medical Post-graduates to teach at the bedside [4]. Other challenges include concerns that medical students may contract the virus during their clinical practice and need to wear personal protection [6]. Passing on their skill and dedication to the future medical practitioners is the most important task of medical education. COVID-19 may cause great impact on the medical students’ attitude and behaviors during the clinical practice [7, 8]

Methods

Results

Conclusion