Knowledge, attitude, and practices toward COVID-19 among the college students in a southern city of Karnataka

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The new coronavirus disease COVID-19 has been spreading from Wuhan city to other cities in China and worldwide since December 2019. It was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020. To guarantee the final success, people's adherence to the control measures is essential, which is greatly influenced by their knowledge, attitude, and practices toward COVID-19. Hence, the study was taken up to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practices among law college students.MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted in Mysore in March 2020 among the students of Law College. Students who were not interested in taking up the study were not included in the study. A total of 256 study participants were included in the study. Data were collected using a pretested and self-administered questionnaire about knowledge-, attitude-, and practice-based questions on COVID-19. Data were entered in Microsoft Excel and were analyzed using SPSS V.23.RESULTS: Among 256 study participants, 130 were female (50.8%) and 126 were male (49.2%). The main sources of information for the study participants are online newspapers/channels (n = 70) and social media (n = 55). The median score of knowledge, attitude, and practices is 5, 4, and 8, respectively. A comparison of the scholastic year with knowledge scores was found to be statistically significant at aP < 0.05.CONCLUSION: The knowledge and attitude scores were low, but it was found that the study participants were following appropriate practices regarding COVID-19.