Knowledge, attitude, practice and perception regarding COVID-19 among students in Bangladesh: Survey in Rajshahi University

Wadood, Md. Abdul; Mamun, ASMA; Rafi, Md. Abdur; Islam, Md. kamrul; Mohd, Suhaili; Lee Lee, Lai; Hossain, Md. Golam

Background: The number of infection and death by COVID-19 has been rapidly increasing since December 2019 in all over the world. Until now, there is no specific treatment or vaccine for this disease; WHO suggests only some protective measures like maintaining social distance, staying home, washing hands with soap or sanitizer, wearing mask etc. The objective of this study was to survey knowledge, attitude, practice and perception regarding COVID-19 among students in Rajshahi University, Bangladesh. Methods: We collected data from 305 students of Rajshahi University for this cross-sectional study using mixed sampling from March 11 to March 19, 2020. Frequency distribution, Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used in this study. Results: Out of 305 participants, 224 (73.4%) and 81 (26.6%) were male and female students respectively. The study revealed that Rajshahi university students had average knowledge on symptoms, protective way and transmission of COVID-19. Female students were more knowledgeable than male. More than one third of the students had negative attitude to avoiding public transport and going out to public places with friends and family. The practice of students during our data collection period and in future was not satisfactory. More than one third of students were not keen to stay at home and avoid going to crowded places. The perception towards COVID-19 was not good; they had no idea whether the outbreak would affect their daily routine, study and financial matters, study field work and restrict leisure time of meeting family and relatives. Conclusions: We found that general knowledge, attitude, practice and perception of the university students regarding COVID-19 were not satisfactory. This indicated that the situation was worse among common people. In Bangladesh, the number of healthcare providers is insufficient. University students can be employed as potential workforce to create awareness among mass people on prevention of COVID-19.