GENDER DIFFERENCE IN AWARENESS AND BEHAVIOURS OF MEDICAL AND DENTAL STUDENTS ABOUT CORONA VIRUS DISEASE (COVID-19) IN PAKISTAN
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55519/JAMC-01-8480Abstract
Background: Medical and dental students are the future of health workforce and a potential volunteer pool in the COVID-19 crises. This study aimed to assess the level and gender differences in the awareness, attitude and behaviours of medical and dentals students about COVID-19 in Pakistan. Methods: An online cross-sectional survey was conducted among medical and dental undergraduate students in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire having four sections: socio-demographics, knowledge, attitude and practices. Results: A total of 1770 medical and dental students participated and completed the questionnaire. About 1239 (70%) of the respondents were female and 1526 (87%) were MBBS students. We found that 1685 (95%) of the students had adequate knowledge. Majority, 1565 (89%) of the students was concerned about COVID-19 and 1480 (84%) believed that disease will ultimately be controlled. Only about 1129 (64%) of the participants in our study had adequate practices. Male gender was associated with higher risk of inadequate practices. Conclusion: There were good knowledge and attitudes about COVID-19 among medical and dental students. However, one third of the participants did not have adequate practices and female had better practices than male students. This gap in the knowledge and practice calls for urgent interventions to improve practices.
References
Li Q, Guan X, Wu P, Wang X, Zhou L, Tong Y, et al. Early Transmission Dynamics in Wuhan, China, of Novel Coronavirus-Infected Pneumonia. N Engl J Med 2020;382(13):1199-207.
Huang C, Wang Y, Li X, Ren L, Zhao J, Hu Y, et al. Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China. Lancet 2020;395(10223):497-506.
WHO. WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19. [Internet]. World Health Organization 11 March 2020 [cited 2020 May 18]. Available from: https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---11-march-2020
Government of Pakistan. COVID-19 official web page, 2021. [Internet]. [cited 2021 July 6]. Available from: http://covid.gov.pk/5
Alsaigh SY, Alasmari AA, Hakeem AH, Aloushan AF, Saleh FSB, Althubaiti A, et al. Gender differences in practicing standard precautions against blood-borne pathogens among surgeons at a tertiary care center: A cross-sectional study. Avicenna J Med 2019;9(1):15-22.
McCarthy GM, MacDonald JK. Gender differences in characteristics, infection control practices, knowledge and attitudes related to HIV among Ontario dentists. Community Dent Oral Epidemiol 1996;24(6):412-5.
Ward D. Gender differences in compliance with infection control precautions. Br J Infect Control 2004;5(1):17-9.
McCarthy GM, Koval JJ, MacDonald JK. Occupational injuries and exposures among Canadian dentists: the results of a national survey. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 1999;20(5):331-6.
Anderson JL, Warren CA, Perez E, Louis RI, Phillips S, Wheeler J, et al. Gender and ethnic differences in hand hygiene practices among college students. Am J Infect Control 2008;36(5):361-8.
Hashim L, Manal I, Afzal N, Mukherjee D, Khan HR, Afzal M, et al. Knowledge, attitude and practices related to COVID-19 among medical students in Pakistan: A web-based survey [Internet]. OSF Preprints; 2021[cited 2021 July]. Available from: osf.io/fb8rj
Ali S, Alam BF, Farooqi F, Almas K, Noreen S. Dental and Medical Students' Knowledge and Attitude toward COVID-19: A Cross-Sectional Study from Pakistan. Eur J Dent 2020;14(S 1):S105-12.
Pakistan Medical & Dental Council. Ordinance: Recognized Medical Colleges in Pakistan 2020. [Internet]. [cited 2020 May 5]. Available from: http://www.pmdc.org.pk/AboutUs/RecognizedMedicalDentalColleges/tabid/109/Default.aspx
Dagher J, Sfeir C, Abdallah A, Majzoub Z. Infection control measures in private dental clinics in Lebanon. Int J Dent 2017;2017:5057248.
Salman M, Mustafa ZU, Asif N, Zaidi HA, Hussain K, Shehzadi N, et al. Knowledge, attitude and preventive practices related to COVID-19: a cross-sectional study in two Pakistani university populations. Drugs Ther Perspect 2020;36:319-25.
Modi D, Nair G, Uppe A, Modi J, Tuppekar B, Gharpure AS, et al. COVID-19 Awareness Among Healthcare Students and Professionals in Mumbai Metropolitan Region: A Questionnaire-Based Survey. Cureus 2020;12(4):e7514.
Peng Y, Pei C, Zheng Y, Wang J, Zhang K, Zheng Z, et al. A cross-sectional survey of knowledge, attitude and practice associated with COVID-19 among undergraduate students in China. BMC Public Health 2020;20(1):1292.
Wadood MA, Mamun A, Rafi MA, kamrul Islam M, Mohd S, Lee LL, et al. Knowledge, attitude, practice and perception regarding COVID-19 among students in Bangladesh: Survey in Rajshahi University. medRxiv 2020;2020:1-24.
Alzoubi H, Alnawaiseh N, Asma'a Al-Mnayyis MA, Lubada AA, Al-Shagahin H. COVID-19-Knowledge, Attitude and Practice among Medical and Non-Medical University Students in Jordan. J Pure Appl Microbiol 2020;14(1):17-24.
Goerig T, Dittmann K, Kramer A, Diedrich S, Heidecke CD, Huebner NO. Infection control perception and behavior: a question of sex and gender? Results of the AHOI feasibility study. Infect Drug Resist 2018;11:2511.
Sharif F, Khan A, Samad MA, Hamid A, Aijaz A, Asad I, et al. Knowledge, attitude, and practices regarding infection control measures among medical students. J Pak Med Assoc 2018;68(7):1065-9.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Journal of Ayub Medical College, Abbottabad is an OPEN ACCESS JOURNAL which means that all content is FREELY available without charge to all users whether registered with the journal or not. The work published by J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad is licensed and distributed under the creative commons License CC BY ND Attribution-NoDerivs. Material printed in this journal is OPEN to access, and are FREE for use in academic and research work with proper citation. J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad accepts only original material for publication with the understanding that except for abstracts, no part of the data has been published or will be submitted for publication elsewhere before appearing in J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad. The Editorial Board of J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad makes every effort to ensure the accuracy and authenticity of material printed in J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad. However, conclusions and statements expressed are views of the authors and do not reflect the opinion/policy of J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad or the Editorial Board.
USERS are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.
AUTHORS retain the rights of free downloading/unlimited e-print of full text and sharing/disseminating the article without any restriction, by any means including twitter, scholarly collaboration networks such as ResearchGate, Academia.eu, and social media sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Scholar and any other professional or academic networking site.
