COVID-19 after.sav

Background Despite variation in vaccine types against COVID-19 infection and
continuous genetic variation in SARS-CoV-2 genome, sticking with preventive
measures remains the first choice to reduce risk.

Method: Study
highlights level of IAU students’ knowledge, attitude, and practice towards
SARS-CoV-2 virus infection during lockdown period. A cross-sectional study was
conducted in IAU University, eastern province - Saudi Arabia. Data collected
from 43 male IAU preparatory year students, through online self-structured
questionnaire. Knowledge level was determined using mean score, and chi-squared
test and t-test were performed to detect significant differences among various
groups.

Results: Age group 17- 20 years have better knowledge
than other groups (t= 2.03, p- value= 0.049). Majority recognized the typical
symptoms and transmission of infection. 93% apply social-distancing as a
crucial preventive measure. Although after lockdown there was 1.7-fold increase
in believing that wearing mask is an effective preventive measure, 37.2% of
them do not trust this practice. Also, there was 2.2-fold increase in number of
participants who got awareness program during lockdown. Level of students’
knowledge was increased from 73.2% to 81.5% after lockdown. Average knowledge
about the role of contaminated tools in disease transmission increased from
33.73% to 75.48%, before and after the lockdown, respectively. After lockdown,
58.1% of participants were anxious and afraid from contact their colleagues and
39.5% missed their classes due to anxiety. Two sources of information affected
participants' knowledge in the period after lockdown: university studies (t=
2.149, p- value= 0.038) and source of information from friends (t= 2.6, p-
value= 0.013).

Conclusions: Our
finding suggests that IAU preparatory-year students have acceptable level of
knowledge, awareness, and attitudes towards COVID-19 infection. It reflects
impact of media on improvement of their preventive measures. Students’
knowledge on COVID-19 pandemic may significantly increase if proactive health
education program is designed to target preparatory students.