Knowledge, attitudes, and practices of university students regarding COVID-19: a cross-sectional study in Vietnam

Abstract

Objective This cross-sectional study investigated the knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) of Vietnamese university students regarding COVID-19. Methods A validated questionnaire (Cronbach's alpha = 0.71) was used to survey 1,025 students. A convenience sampling method was used for recruiting students from April to May 2022. The Wilcoxon rank-sum test and the Kruskal–Wallis rank-sum test/Dunn test for multiple comparisons were employed to compare students' KAP scores between two groups and among three groups or more, respectively. Factors associated with students' COVID-19 KAP scores were determined via univariate and multivariate linear regression models. Variables in the multivariate linear regression models were chosen using the Bayesian Model Averaging method in R software version 4.2.0. Results A majority of students had good knowledge (75.61%), positive attitudes (98.24%), and good practices toward COVID-19 (94.93%). Regarding the COVID-19 knowledge, the proportions of students who knew that mosquito bites and exposure to/eating wild animals would not lead to COVID-19 infection were not high (47.22 and 34.34%, respectively). More importantly, 70.34% of students thought that vitamins and minerals could help prevent or cure COVID-19. Antibiotics were the first choice for COVID-19 treatment of 438 students (42.73%). Nearly half of students (48.0%) bought antibiotics to keep at home in case of COVID-19 infection. The average KAP scores of medical students (19.97 ± 3.99, 45.10 ± 3.94, 9.72 ± 1.78) and females (18.67 ± 4.44, 44.79 ± 3.79, 9.36 ± 1.84) were significantly higher than those of non-medical students (16.48 ± 4.37, 43.33 ± 4.03, 8.68 ± 1.87) and males (17.01 ± 4.55, 42.79 ± 4.39, 8.77 ± 1.97), respectively (p < 0.001). Older students were more likely to have good knowledge and practices than the younger ones (p < 0.001). In addition, students using websites of the World Health Organization/the Ministry of Health and scientific articles to seek COVID-19 information were significantly associated with higher KAP scores when compared with those not using these sources (p < 0.001, p < 0.001, and p = 0.00139, respectively). Conclusion Students' KAP scores significantly varied by age, sex, major, and sources of COVID-19 information. Although many students had sufficient knowledge, positive attitudes, and good preventive practices toward COVID-19, additional education and training strategies are paramount, especially for non-medical students and males.

Knowledge, Attitudes, Perceptions, and Acceptance of COVID-19 Vaccination among Pharmacy and Non-Pharmacy Students

“…With overall good self-reported health, social media was the most relied upon source of information to both pharmacy (44.5%) and non-pharmacy (37.3%) students, followed by the information provided by the government authorities (24.4–26.4%). These findings, that social media, and the internet were the major sources of information for students, were in complete agreement with previous studies from Bangladesh (33.4%), Vietnam (87.61%), Jordan (83.4%), and Egypt (75.5%) [ 25 ]. However, as acknowledged in previous studies [ 26 , 27 ], some credit goes to the government of Pakistan, as government authorities were rated as the second major source of information by the students.…”

Assessment of Pharmacy Students’ Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices About Covid-19 Pandemic and Vaccines

“…Regarding attitudes towards COVID-19 and vaccines, the percentage of students who received higher scores from the attitudes questions was poor (43.3%). It was lower than those students from Vietnam (68.8% and 98.4%), China (67.8) and Italy (90.6%) [5,12,13,15]. The percentage of students who received higher scores from practice questions was moderate with 53.8% in our study.…”

“…Similar to our study (74.9%), the knowledge towards COVID-19 among healthcare students in Saudi Arabia and Vietnam were 65.7% [11] and 86.6% [5], respectively. The knowledge scores of university students in Vietnam were 75.61% [12], while it was 85.3% (means score out of 22 questions was 18.76) among student nurses in Philippines [2]. Similarly, the majority of nursing students in Italy had good score for knowledge about COVID-19 (94.6%) [13].…”

“…In our study there were no differences in knowledge scores of male and female students. However, female students were more likely to have higher scores of KAP in a study conducted among the university students in Vietnam [5,12]. Several factors including age, sex, country of residence, school type, school year, family income and perceptual awareness on COVID-19 can affect their knowledge, attitude, and/or practice toward COVID-19 [14].…”

Comparison of students’ perceptions of online and hybrid learning modalities during the covid-19 pandemic: The case of the University of Sharjah

“…Cross tabulations and chi-square tests were used to compare indicators across demographic characteristics. Students’ levels of agreement on a range of perception statements related to online (15 items) and hybrid learning (11 items) were explored using a three-point Likert scale and were dichotomized into "positive" and "negative" based on a 50% cut-off point, in line with several previous studies [ 25 , 26 ]. For online learning perceptions, scores of > 7 were considered positive, and scores ≤ 7 were considered negative.…”