COVID-19 knowledge, misconceptions and practices among the non-medical college students in Tamil Nadu

Dhanaraj, Vijayalakshmi Natarajan Gowdhaman Asha J.; Revathy, P. R.; Mohan, Divya Udayakumar Jayasimha Raj

COVID 19 is an outbreak of global proportions with a prodigious impact that has made many countries across the globe to institute various forms of lockdown measures. A good understanding and knowledge of the disease is indispensable for the management of infection spread and for effective control measures. The aim of the study was to conduct a rapid online survey for evaluating the COVID 19 knowledge, misconceptions and practices among the non-medical college students in Tamil Nadu. An online cross sectional survey was conducted using Google forms involving 414 participants, who were college students from Tamil Nadu and were not related to health sciences courses. The questionnaire consisted of 4 sections to gauge the demographic details, COVID 19 knowledge, misconceptions and practices. The completed questionnaire was submitted by the students from the period of 6th July 2020 to 18th July 2020.The total responses received were 426 out of which 414 valid responses were taken into account. The female respondents of the study accounted for 57.2%. The Knowledge score was good except for the variable responses in case of knowledge regarding transmission from asymptomatic persons. This study reports considerable percentage of existing misconceptions and sensible practices being followed as advised by the government and health department. In general, the college students' level of COVID 19 knowledge was satisfactory, yet we could find inconsistencies in the fallacies and practices among them. Such online surveys can shed light upon the need for measures to increase the awareness and to improve practices during the rapid outbreak of COVID 19.