Knowledge and Attitude of Medical Students towards COVID-19 Pandemic

Aim: To determine the knowledge and attitude of medical undergraduates towards COVID-19.

Study Design: Cross-sectional.

Place and Duration of Study: Study was conducted at Quaid-e Azam medical college from June 2020 to August 2020.

Methodology: The undergraduate students enrolled in 1st year to final year of MBBS were included in the study. A proforma was prepared by using the Google Docs and validated before starting the study. The reliability of the questionnaire was 0.78. Data was analyzed by using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version-20. All the qualitative variables were presented as frequency and percentages while quantitative as mean and standard deviation. Knowledge score was compared with demographic variables by using independent t-test and one-way ANOVA test, as appropriate. p-value less than 0.05 was considered as significant.

Results: About 56% of the participants were female while remaining 44% were male, majority of them i.e. 51.6% were mediocre. Majority were from 3rd year and final year i.e. 25.2% and 24.4% respectively. Looking over the mean knowledge score the final year students having more knowledge about COVID-19 then the other students from different years, among them the female participants were having more knowledge score then their male counterparts with significant highly p-value. Comparing knowledge score with socioeconomic status reported that upper class was having higher score. Over-all 74% of final year students answered correctly to all of the questions regarding knowledge towards COVID-19. Considering specifically the attitude of medical students towards COVID-19, majority of the students including all years of MBBS, like to get more information about COVID-19.

Conclusion: It can be concluded that Pakistani undergraduate students of MBBS are having good knowledge about COVID-19. They are also well-aware of the protective measures which should be taken. In comparison, final year students having the higher level of knowledge then the students of other years of MBBS. All the students having positive attitude for stopping COVID-19.