Adequate knowledge of COVID-19 impacts good practices amongst health profession students in the Philippines

  1. Junhel Dalanon
  2. Rhomeljustein Redoble
  3. Jo-Ann Belotindos
  4. Candy Delos Reyes
  5. Jaime Fabillar
  6. Ma. Shiril Armero
  7. Rozzano Locsin
  8. Yoshitaka Suzuki
  9. Kazuo Okura
  10. Yoshizo Matsuka

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Abstract

Background

The spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the Philippines started with its first suspected case on January 22, 2020. The government reacted by imposing several measures including community quarantine, class suspensions, drug therapy and vaccine development, and travel restrictions. This online survey was done amongst Filipino health professions undergraduate students to uncover the relationship between their knowledge, attitude, and practice during this pandemic.

Methods

Cross-sectional data were obtained from an online survey done on students of medicine, dentistry, optometry, rehabilitative sciences, and pharmacy.

Results

At a response rate of 100% (n=1257), the results show that healthcare profession students in the Philippines have good knowledge (87.6%) and practices (63.6%) regarding COVID-19, yet attitude (63.6%) was just passable. This study also shows that a strong correlation exists between knowledge and practice concerning the current pandemic, r(2) = 0.08, P = 0.004.

Conclusion

Adequate knowledge of COVID-19 impacts good practices of avoiding crowded places and misuse of steam inhalation amongst health profession students in the Philippines. Knowledge and practice pertaining to the current pandemic have been found to be good, but attitude remains low.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.02.18.431919: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: Ethical considerations: Ethical approval was sought from and given by the ethical review board of the School of Dentistry of Southwestern University PHINMA.
    Consent: Digital signatures of the participants were collected as consent to participate in the study. 2.4.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot 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:
    The current study is not all-encompassing and there are several limitations that have been left unrequited. As with previous studies on KAP concerning COVID-19, majority of the participants were females. The socioeconomic status of the individuals would have been an excellent variable in determining how it affects KAP. Religion and how it affects the aforementioned variables can be an interesting perspective to unravel as well. As this study utilized online survey, there are still some sectors of the Philippine populace that don’t have online presence. New knowledge regarding the disease and its variants can modify the current findings. Multiple attitudes and practices can also be added in the future. More studies are warranted in investigating the KAP of healthcare professions students.

    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.
    • No funding statement was detected.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2021.02.18.431919v1 on bioRxiv