Knowledge, attitude, and practice related to the COVID-19 pandemic among undergraduate medical students in Indonesia: A nationwide cross-sectional study

  1. Imam Adli
  2. Indah Suci Widyahening
  3. Gilbert Lazarus
  4. Jason Phowira
  5. Lyanna Azzahra Baihaqi
  6. Bagas Ariffandi
  7. Azis Muhammad Putera
  8. David Nugraha
  9. Nico Gamalliel
  10. Ardi Findyartini

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Abstract

The potential role of medical students in raising awareness during public health emergencies has been acknowledged. To further explore their potentials as public educators and role models for the communities during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, this study aims to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice of these students toward COVID-19.

Methods

An online cross-sectional survey was conducted among undergraduate medical students in Indonesia. Socio-demographics characteristics, social interaction history, information-seeking behavior, as well as knowledge, attitude, and practice toward COVID-19 were collected through a self-reported questionnaire. A p-value of <0.05 indicated statistical significance.

Results

Out of 4870 respondents, 64.9% had positive attitude and 51.5% had positive practice toward COVID-19, while only 29.8% had adequate knowledge. Knowledge was slightly positively correlated with attitude and practice (ρ = 0.074 and ρ = 0.054, respectively; both p<0.001), while attitude was weakly correlated with practice (ρ = 0.234, p<0.001). Several factors including age, sex, place of residence, institution type, academic level, family income, history of chronic illness, prior volunteering experience, and perceptual awareness on COVID-19 were significantly associated with either knowledge, attitude, and/or practice toward COVID-19. Furthermore, health institution’s and the government’s press releases, as well as health expert opinions were deemed as the most reliable sources of COVID-19-related information–yet trivially none of these sources were associated with knowledge, attitude, and practice in the study population.

Conclusion

Many undergraduate medical students in Indonesia had positive attitude and practice against COVID-19, yet only a few had adequate knowledge. This warrants further interventions to keep them updated with COVID-19 evidence to maximize their potentials in raising public awareness on COVID-19.

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  1. Version published to 10.1371/journal.pone.0262827
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.07.05.21260021: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsConsent: The questionnaire was filled anonymously, voluntarily, and with consent given by all respondents.
    IRB: All procedures conducted in this study have been approved by the Health Research Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Medicine Universitas Indonesia and Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital (ethical clearance number: 758/UN2.F1/ETIK/PPM.00.02/2020).
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Subsequently, data were analyzed using SPSS 24.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL) and visualized using R ver.
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    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: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    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.

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

    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.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.07.05.21260021v1 on medRxiv