Information Channels and Knowledge of Coronavirus Disease 2019 among Vietnamese/Nepalese Students in Japan: A Cross-Sectional Study

Aim This study aimed to assess the knowledge level of coronavirus disease 2019 and identify related factors, including information channels, among Vietnamese/Nepalese students in Japanese language schools. Methods A self-administered online questionnaire survey was administered between January 31 and February 28, 2022. One hundred forty-one Vietnamese and 33 Nepalese students participated in this survey. Results Facebook was the most commonly used social media platform for obtaining coronavirus disease 2019 information. Approximately 75% of the participants were aware of one of the multilingual posters issued by the government. The mean score for coronavirus disease 2019 knowledge was 17.6 out of 23. Knowledge of coronavirus disease 2019 was associated with using Facebook to obtain coronavirus disease 2019 information (β=1.01; 95% confidence interval, 0.09–1.93; p=0.03), seeing an official multilingual poster (β=0.88; 95% confidence interval, 0.09–1.68; p=0.03), and country of origin (β=2.09; 95% confidence interval, 1.05–3.13; p<0.001). Conclusions Providing multilingual information from reliable sources, such as official posters, through popular channels, such as Facebook, is useful for increasing access to information. Such information must be tailored to the characteristics of the community and its members. In this study, we conducted a survey among international students at Japanese language schools who were among the information-vulnerable groups while living with coronavirus disease 2019. They were newcomers to Japan and faced language barriers.