Knowledge, attitude, and practice of first year medical students toward Novel Coronavirus disease

Abstract

Background: The coronavirus disease (COVID) also known as COVID-19 caused by a novel human coronavirus Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Corona Virus-2 is transmitted from person to person through inhalation of aerosols from the infected individual. The WHO has declared as public health emergency of international concern and has put forth certain norms and rules to prevent the spread of the disease such as hand washing, social distancing, and wearing masks to control the outbreak along with lockdowns at periodic intervals. Aim and Objectives: The aim of the study was to assess knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) of 1st year medical students of 19–20 batch aged 19–20 years toward Novel Coronavirus disease during lockdown. Materials and Methods: Our study was conducted among fresher’s of 150 students of 1st year MBBS 19–20 batch of Sri Siddhartha Medical College, Tumkur, aged 19–20 years. A link from Google form was posted and circulated using various social media such as WhatsApp group and e-mail address of the students. The questionnaire consisted of 29 questions which included KAP assessment. Results: Descriptive analysis and Chi-square test are applied to analyze the data. Among 160 respondents, 98.1% were aware of COVID-19, majority of them showed positive attitude and social distancing to prevent COVID-19 pandemic according to the WHO norms. Conclusion: Our study showed that during COVID-19 pandemic 98.1% of the students had good knowledge about the novel coronavirus infection and 89.7% had a positive attitude toward COVID-19. Although the students showed a very good KAP toward COVID-19, still some grey areas regarding KAP toward COVID-19 were still left.