Student’s Knowledge, Perception and Approaches towards Covid-19 Preventive Measures in PAMO University of Medical Sciences, Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Abstract

Background In times of a disease pandemic, people's compliance with preventive measures is affected by their knowledge, attitudes, and practices towards the disease. This study was designed to evaluate the knowledge, perception and approaches of medical science students toward Covid-19 preventive measures. Materials and Methods This was a cross-sectional survey conducted among 145 medical students of Peter Adaeze Mary Odili (PAMO) University of Medical Sciences, Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria selected using a convenient sampling technique. A 22-items questionnaire was administered to the participants and retrieved immediately after completion. The data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics on the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 21.0 (IBM Corp, Amornk, NY, 2012) and the level of statistical significance was set at p < 0.05. Results Most of the participants 135(93%), knew that Covid-19 is caused by a virus. The majority 142 (98%) agreed that the disease can be transmitted from person to person. The majority of the participants 119(82%), said they were afraid of the vaccine. There were no statistically significant relationships between gender and general knowledge of Covid-19 (p = 0.073), or approach to preventive measures (p = 0.321). The year of study showed no statistically significant relationships between knowledge of vaccines (p= 0.074) and approaches to preventive measures ( p = 0.431). There was a statistically significant relationship between the program of study and the knowledge of vaccines (p = 0.002) while there were no statistically significant relationships between the program of study and approaches to preventive measures (p= 0.081). Conclusion There was a statistically significant relationship between the programme of study and the knowledge of the vaccine while there were no statistically significant relationships between the programme of study and general knowledge of Covid-19 and approaches to preventive measures.