ISSN: 0973-7510

E-ISSN: 2581-690X

Research Article | Open Access
Hamed Alzoubi1 , Nedal Alnawaiseh2, Asma’a Al-Mnayyis3, Mohammad Abu- Lubad1, Amin Aqel1 and Hani Al-Shagahin4
1Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of medicine, Mu’tah University, Jordan.
2Community Medicine and Public Health Department, Faculty of Medicine, Mutah University, Al-Karak, Jordan.
3Department of clinical sciences, College of Medicine, Yarmouk University, Shafiq Irshidat St, Irbid 21163, Jordan.
4Department of Special Surgery, Division of Otorhinolaryngology, Faculty of Medicine, Mutah University, Al-Karak, Jordan.
J. Pure Appl. Microbiol., 2020, 14 (1): 17-24 | Article Number: 6200
https://doi.org/10.22207/JPAM.14.1.04 | © The Author(s). 2020
Received: 14/03/2020 | Accepted: 30/03/2020 | Published: 02/04/2020
Abstract

The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 as a pandemic on the 11th of March 2020. Since then, many efforts are being carried out to contain the virus. Knowledge and attitude of people should be directed towards strict preventive practices in order to halt the spread of the virus. The aim of the current cross-sectional study is to assess the knowledge, practice and attitude of university students from medical and non-medical colleges in Jordan using a structured questionnaire involving a total number of 592 students. A positive response regarding the overall knowledge about the symptoms of COVID-19 was observed in more than 90% of the students. In response to the attitude and practice, a good number of students nearly 99.7% agreed that hand washing is necessary for prevention of infection whereas 68.4% believed that mask wearing would prevent the infection. Around 6-7% students considered the virus as a stigma hence would not visit hospital. Also, around 10% students believed that their religious beliefs and body immunity might protect them from infection. More dangerously, 20.6% and 19.2% students believed antibiotics and smoking to be a protective measure against the infection respectively. Also, 96.8% do avoid hand shaking, 98.8% wash their hands and 93.3% use alcoholic rub, 95.8% cough or sneeze in a tissue and dispose it in waste bin, 51% will drink ginger with honey and 42.7% eat garlic for infection prevention. The main sources of knowledge were social media, internet and television. No significant difference was noticed between medical and non medical colleges. Thus, there is a need for more detailed and directed measures and awareness campaigns to improve the knowledge, attitude and practice in some critical aspects to contain the virus.

Keywords

COVID-19, Knowledge, practice, attitude, university, students, Jordan.

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© The Author(s) 2020. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted use, sharing, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.