https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7070-7234
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ABSTRACT
Background
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic represents a major health problem, and its influences may persist with emerging viral variants. The current work was to evaluate the knowledge, attitude, and learning satisfaction of health sciences students (HSS) regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods
A questionnaire-based cross-sectional study was conducted from 20 February 2021 to 20 March 2021. Participants were undergraduate HSS at Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University in Al Kharj, Saudi Arabia. The questionnaire has been generated and distributed via online form. The questionnaire used was based on previous studies and included demographic information and knowledge, attitudes, perception, and learning satisfaction related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Results
Out of the 400 questionnaires distributed to eligible students, the current study included a total of 330 HSS (82.5% response rate) from colleges of medicine (25.5%), dentistry (11.8%), pharmacy (33.6%), and Applied Medical Sciences (29.1%) of participants. The mean scores of knowledge, attitude, and learning satisfaction attained by students were 5.63 ± 0.65 out of 6, 4.22 ± 1.01 out of 5, and 11.28 ± 2.9 out of 19, respectively. Results show an association between the knowledge score of students and their age-group and specialty-college. Students with chronic diseases reported lower attitude scores and rate of COVID-19 vaccine-willingness. Younger HSS had a higher learning satisfaction score than the older participants.
Conclusion
Overall, participants show high knowledge level and positive attitude toward COVID-19 but fair learning satisfaction during the pandemic. Further studies are needed to improve the learning satisfaction and attitude of HSS in the future.
Acknowledgments
The authors sincerely thank Dr. Mesnad Alyabsi, Dr Amira Farghaly and Dr. Mohamed A. AlHasan for their help to the current study. This publication was supported by the Deanship of Scientific Research at Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, Al Kharj, Saudi Arabia.
Availability of Data and Materials
Data are available upon request from the author.
Authors’ contributions
This work was performed in collaboration between all authors. They designed the study, collected and processed questionnaires, created the manuscript, and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Ethics approval and consent to participate
The ethical committee in Deanship of scientific research, Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University with IRB (REC-HSD-53-2021), approved the current study. An informed consent was taken from the study participants, after explanations about the aim of the study to each of them.
Declaration of funding
No funding was received for the production of this manuscript.
Disclosure of financial/other conflicts of interest
The authors have no relevant conflicts of interest to disclose. Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.
Supplementary material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.