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Category: Volume 08 Issue 06 June 2020
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Title: Knowledge, attitude and practice of medical and dental undergraduate students regarding COVID 19

Authors: Dr Ankita Singh, Dr Anuradha P, Dr Arpit Singh, Dr Sahana S,  Dr Sugandha Agarwal, Dr Shweta Singh

 DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.18535/jmscr/v8i6.123

Abstract

Introduction: COVID-19 disease is caused by SARS-CoV-2, it is a highly contagious disease. The World Health Organization has declared  the  ongoing  outbreak  to  be a global Public Health Emergency. This study was conducted to assess the Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice (KAP) of medical and dental undergraduate (UG) students at the time of COVID-19 pandemic.

Materials and Methods: An online questionnaire was distributed among medical and dental undergraduate students using a combination of convenience and snowball sampling. The questionnaire had 4 sections; the 1st section includes demographic details, whereas the 2nd, 3rd and 4th sections had questions related to knowledge (6 questions), attitudes (5 questions) and practices (6 questions). The analysis was done using IBM SPSS for Windows, v. 20.0. Chi square test was applied and statistical significance level was set at p < 0.05.

Results: The total number of the responses received was 1128 among that 414 were Medical undergraduate students and 714 were Dental undergraduate students. The overall achieved knowledge score indicate that 94.2% medical and 85.4% dental UG had good knowledge regarding COVID-19. All medical and 89.08% dental UG had a good attitude however, when it comes to practice only 72.4% medical and 70.3% dental UG scored in good category.

Conclusion: The knowledge and attitude of the UG students towards COVID-19 at the time of its outbreak is satisfactory, but the deficiencies in the practice need to be improved further. Emphasis on undergraduate training is necessary so as to minimize the risk of transmission of disease among students, also they are the future health care workers and also act as role model for the community.

Keywords: Knowledge, Attitude, Practice, COVID-19, medical undergraduate, dental undergraduate.

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Corresponding Author

Dr Arpit Singh

Assistant Professor, Department of Orthopedic Surgey, King George’s Medical University Lucknow,

Uttar Pradesh, India