Abstract
Higher educational centres with significant numbers of young people will become acute disease hubs during a pandemic. Owing to the sizeable population of young adults, more direct social interaction, and unrestricted boundaries, universities have the capacity to become volatile, centrifugal outbreak hubs. This research examines the university student’s knowledge, attitude, and practice towards the COVID-19 pandemic in Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM), Nilai. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to obtain the data and analysed utilising SPSS software with a sample size of 2061 USIM students. Descriptive statistics, Likert scale analysis, multiple linear regression, as well as Pearson correlation, were used to identify the relationship between KAP. It was discovered that most of the USIM’s students have an excellent knowledge (85%) and attitude (73.8%) towards COVID-19. However, they moderately practice the right steps to prevent themselves from virus infection. This is very likely due to unpreparedness in responding to a critical situation such as this pandemic. In other words, it can be said that although students have a pretty good knowledge on the matter, still, attitude and practice have much room for improvement. The study finds significant relationship between practice and both knowledge and attitude.
Highlights
The COVID-19 outbreak in Malaysia can be tracked back to 25th of January in 2020, which was first found among travellers coming from China through Singapore after the COVID19 outburst in Hubei, China (Ahmad et al, 2020; Islam et al 2020a)
By 16th March, a Movement Control Order (MCO) was announced, which was designed to slow the spreading of the virus through campaigns involving social distancing that would last for two whole weeks starting 18th of March 2020.[5][6][7]
This study is strikingly different from other studies as it is among the pioneer in representing an Islamic based public university in Malaysia, in response to COVID-19
Summary
The COVID-19 outbreak in Malaysia can be tracked back to 25th of January in 2020, which was first found among travellers coming from China through Singapore after the COVID19 outburst in Hubei, China (Ahmad et al, 2020; Islam et al 2020a). Before the arrival of localized clusters which appeared in March 2020, reported cases appeared comparatively low and restricted mostly to imported cases. The fastest-growing cluster was connected to a religious gathering of Tabligh Jamaat held towards the end of February and early March of 2020, in Sri Petaling, Kuala Lumpur, resulting in huge increment of both local and export cases (Islam et al 2020b; Moon & Hadlet, 2020). Malaysia reported the highest COVID-19 cases in Southeast Asia [4], rising from less than 30 cases at the beginning of the month to 2000 inactive cases towards the end of March 2020. On 13th of March 2020, a live nationwide announcement was made by Malaysia’s Prime Minister which indicated actions to reduce the spreading of virus. By 16th March, a Movement Control Order (MCO) was announced, which was designed to slow the spreading of the virus through campaigns involving social distancing that would last for two whole weeks starting 18th of March 2020.[5][6][7]
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