Relationship between awareness and fear about coronavirus disease infection among M.B.B.S. students studying at dedicated coronavirus disease hospital – A cross-sectional web-based survey

Background: News of havoc created by novel corona virus in infected regions of the world gave rise to fear and panic about coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infection among the people. Various news agencies, bringing mixed and variable information helped the spread of fear among the masses. Aims and Objectives: On literature search, few studies can be found analyzing fear and anxiety about COVID-19 infection among medical students, medical professionals, as well as general public. The present study is an attempt to fulfill these lacunae. Materials and Methods: The present study was carried out at tertiary care hospital and medical college. Design of the study was a cross-sectional, observational study and data collection was carried out using online means. Results: Mean score of All responses was 7.37 and with standard deviation of 1.36. Among individual questions, perfect score was achieved for question regarding common symptoms for COVID-19 infection while the lowest score was obtained for minimum hand washing time mentioned as per the WHO guidelines with only 15.6% of responders giving correct answer. Conclusion: Findings of this study demonstrated the level of fear and level of awareness and knowledge among the M.B.B.S. students. There was moderate amount of fear among the minds of students and their awareness and knowledge about COVID-19 infection was high. Although, difference in awareness score was statistically significant but no significant difference was obtained for fear levels among different batches of medical students.