Assessment of the Level of Awareness of Students of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences about COVID-19 Disease in 2020

The new pandemic caused by Coronavirus in 2019 (COVID-19) has had many destructive psychological and physical effects. Medical students can play a major role in the reduction of the destructive effects of this disease; however, first, they need to have the necessary knowledge about it. In this regard, the present study aimed to assess the level of awareness of students of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences about COVID19 to identify any gaps in their knowledge and help improve it.

This descriptive-analytical cross-sectional study was conducted on 463 medical students of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences in the second semester of the academic year 2019-20. The required data were collected through an online researcher-made questionnaire that was created in Google Docs and completed by students. It should be noted that all the analyses were performed in SPSS software (version 26) and a p-value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Based on the findings, the mean score of the awareness of students regarding the disease epidemiology, clinical questions, prevention and transmission, virology and basic information, and total score were 87.56±15.31, 53.06±20.12, 58.22±91.20, 55.40±24.74, and 63.44±12.09 out of 100, respectively. Moreover, it was found that female students were significantly more aware of the prevention and transmission of COVID-19, compared to males (P=0.017).

It can be concluded that the level of awareness of medical students at Mashhad University of Medical Sciences about COVID-19 is moderate. Due to the major role of students in the control or spread of the infection, it is recommended that more educational interventions be conducted to increase their awareness regarding this emerging virus and ensure their adequate ability to cope with this epidemic.