Undergraduate medical students in India are underprepared to be the young-taskforce against Covid-19 amid prevalent fears

  1. Vishwesh Agarwal
  2. Latika Gupta
  3. Samira Davalbhakta
  4. Durga Misra
  5. Vikas Agarwal
  6. Ashish Goel

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Abstract

Background

The healthcare system in India faces an acute shortage of front-line doctors to fight the Covid-19. Thus, the recruitment of undergraduate medical students into the health care force is being considered by many state governments. A survey was conducted amongst undergraduate medical students to understand their knowledge, attitude, and preparedness towards the ongoing pandemic.

Methods

An anonymized survey on a cloud-based website (Survey Monkey®) comprising 33 questions was served to medical students.

Results

Of 616 (24.6%) respondents among 2500 invitees across six medical schools in India, most (54.1%) were in the final year of their undergraduate training program. Knowledge regarding viral transmission, clinical features, laboratory diagnosis, and drugs being tried out in Covid-19 was adequate among most students. However, understanding of the incubation period 123 (20%) and time to symptoms 30 (4.8%) was less than satisfactory. Three-fourths (75%) were unaware of the treatment guidelines for Covid-19, and one-quarter (155, 25.1%) were unaware of the required precautions during management. Moreover, 179 (29.1%) were unaware that Covid-19 causes an asymptomatic or minor illness in young individuals. Nearly 70% were reluctant to attend clinics from fear of getting infected or passing on to others. Besides, 250 (40.6%) were not updated on Covid-19, and most (486, 78.9%) resorted to social media for information on Covid-19.

Conclusion

Prevalent fears and inadequate understanding of Covid-19 suggest that undergraduate medical students are not prepared to be the front-line taskforce in the current pandemic.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.11.20061333: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

    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:
    The limitations of our survey are less than expected (25%) response rate (ideal response rate 60% or more) and the inherent biases of self-reported questionnaires. This could be due to the short (week-long) duration of the survey and request over one social media platform. Moreover, time is of the essence in understanding the attitude of students towards the pandemic. Since this is a policy issue that deserves quick and urgent attention due to the unusual situation, apriori, a cut-off of 500 responses were deemed appropriate. This survey is the first study evaluating the knowledge and attitude among undergraduate students, providing a deeper understanding of their preparedness against the ongoing pandemic. Thus, we conclude that inadequate understanding of Covid-19 and prevalent fears amongst young medical undergraduates found them under prepared for Covid-19 care. If their services are to be utilized during the pandemic, focused education should first be imparted. This survey calls for serious introspection by health authorities before contemplating such action.

    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.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.04.11.20061333v2 on medRxiv
  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.04.11.20061333v1 on medRxiv