Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed various stresses on individuals and communities. Coping with sudden, tense, demanding situations during an infectious disease outbreak requires self-efficacy. Increasing the public’s self-efficacy for preventive and control measures is important in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic. This research was aimed at evaluating the self-efficacy and associated factors of students at a public university in the southwest region of Saudi Arabia during the COVID-19 pandemic. This was a cross-sectional study, and a snowball sampling method was used to recruit participants. Data were collected from the beginning of April to the end of June 2020 using an online questionnaire. A total of 761 students were included in the study. The participants’ demographic data were collected, and self-efficacy was analyzed using the General Self-efficacy Scale. The results showed that self-efficacy for dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic was moderate in almost half of the students but was low in approximately 25% of the participants. There were statistically significant associations between self-efficacy regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and gender, college type, marital status, and family income (p < 0.05). However, the participants’ self-efficacy was not associated with age, residence, or history of chronic illness. In dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, most students had either moderate or low self-efficacy. Certain demographic variables were positively associated with self-efficacy as perceived by the students. These findings provide data central to the development of self-efficacy initiatives. They may also be useful for the effective implementation of public health preventive behavior programs during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Highlights
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has led to a global pandemic that started in Wuhan city, China and has affected over 65.8 million people and led to more than 1.5 million deaths worldwide
It shows that 44.9% of the participants responded hardly true to the statement I can always solve the difficult problems facing me related to COVID-19
35.7% of them answered hardly true when asked if they could solve most of the problems caused by social distancing, and one-third (33.5%) of the participants exactly true when asked if It was easy for them to adhere to the COVID-19 preventive measures
Summary
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has led to a global pandemic that started in Wuhan city, China and has affected over 65.8 million people and led to more than 1.5 million deaths worldwide. The disease has presented an unprecedented challenge to public health systems and caused widespread economic and social disruptions. Successful management of this global health crisis requires worldwide collaboration and public responsibility[1,2]. From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Saudi Arabia took numerous active measures to control the spread of the disease These measures included travel restrictions, switching students to online learning, quarantines, stopping pilgrimages, suspension of new visa services, and a 24-hour curfew. Despite these measures, the number of positive cases kept increasing, especially after the curfew was partially lifted. The cumulative number of COVID-19 cases in Saudi Arabia was 361,1783,4
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