A qualitative exploration of the perspectives of international medical students residing in university hostels amid COVID-19 pandemic lockdown

  1. Sitaram Khadka
  2. Muhammad Usman
  3. Mohammad Saleem
  4. Moshin Ali
  5. Huma Rasheed
  6. Santoshi Giri
  7. Ravi Prasad Gupta
  8. Yogesh Bajgain
  9. Janak Shahi

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Abstract

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has portentously frightened the existence of life globally. The lockdown approach was adopted as a containment strategy as the disease itself has manifested severe social, economic, and psychiatric implications. This study was conducted to explore the perception and preparedness of international medical students residing in university hostels amid the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.

Methods:

A total of 11 international medical students were selected through the purposive sampling technique and interviewed face-to-face through the semi-structured interview guide. All the interviews were audio-taped, transcribed verbatim, and then analyzed for thematic content by standard content analysis framework.

Results:

The 5 major themes were yielded: familiarity with COVID-19, perceptions and attitudes toward COVID-19, preparedness for safety against COVID-19, barriers to lifestyle, and psychological perspectives. Adequate knowledge regarding the overview of COVID-19; preventive approaches such as social distancing, use of masks, gloves, and sanitizers; and compliance with the lockdown measures were reported by the respondents. The pertinent issue raised by the respondents was the disturbance in normal routine due to distortion in social life and isolation.

Conclusion:

The findings from this study lighten the people’s perspectives that help the government to prepare public health strategies based on population-focused approaches. The present study demonstrates the respondents’ opinion on COVID-19 management through personal hygiene, social distancing, and complying with the lockdown measures. Furthermore, it demands the adoption of timely and evidence-based teaching-learning techniques for students’ engagement which ensures mental health and self-motivation as well.

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  1. Version published to 10.1097/gh9.0000000000000092
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.08.02.21261480: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsIRB: Ethical approval: The ethics approval was received from the Institutional Ethics Review Board of the University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan (Reference number:183/DFEMS).
    Consent: Informed verbal consent to participate in the study was obtained from participants.
    Field Sample Permit: Respondents sampling and inclusion criteria: The study was conducted in Punjab Province, which is the most developed, populated, and the second-largest province of Pakistan.
    Sex as a biological variableAll the interviews were audio-taped, and additional field notes were taken by the principal investigator SK (male)
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Strengths and limitations: This study is novel as it is the first of its kind study. It has delivered a convenient and comprehensive understanding of the knowledge, perception, and preparedness of the international medical students residing in hostels of different Universities of Pakistan towards the COVID-19 pandemic. A significant strength of this study was the inclusion of international students of six countries who are pursuing medical courses in seven Universities in different places of Pakistan. This enabled an in-depth exploration of the range of knowledge, perceptions, and preparedness as well of such students towards the COVID-19 pandemic. This study informs about the status of international medical students in Pakistan that can help their management with a quality stay in such a global pandemic. In this context, this study can have an impact in filling the prevailing gap in the qualitative, academic, and administrative issues between the international medical students and the respective authority and the literature as well. All the participants were guaranteed the secrecy and confidentiality of their profile, and the interview was also taken by international students in Pakistan. Therefore, the participants liberally and decently communicated their feelings. Besides, the data analysis based on a thematic analysis method simplified the generation of typical findings. Moreover, there are some probable limitations linked to this qualitative study. This study was carrie...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a protocol registration statement.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.08.02.21261480v1 on medRxiv