ABSTRACT
Introduction: COVID-19 pandemic has changed the life condition in various sectors. Numerous students in our faculty who should graduate in 2020 must be delayed. This clinical clerkship performed offline in the pandemic era shall be perceived as a crash program to pass the students. This study aimed to evaluate the implementation of a community medicine clerkship (CMC) amidst the pandemic by referring to students' perceptions. Methods: This research was a mixed methods study involving 40 students from Universitas Islam Negeri Syarif Hidayatullah, Indonesia. Students were placed in groups in the ten health centers in Tangerang Regency from August to September 2020. The open-ended question via online form was distributed at the beginning of the activity and the fourth week of the clerkship. Results: The study revealed that students' concerns increased from week one to week four, but the difference was not statistically significant (p>0.05). The participants identified as the causative factors were insufficient availability of personal protective equipment (PPE), unsynchronized coordination between faculties, preceptors and practice fields, many assignments, and frequent changes in schedule and activities. Conclusion: The implementation of CMC was affected by four factors, namely the faculty, the preceptors, the practical field, and the student itself. Asynchrony within the entire factor results in and contributes to students' concern for practice in the field. © 2022 UPM Press. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Objectives: The symptoms of COVID-19 resemble those of a variety of mild to severe clinical conditions. Having epidemiological knowledge of the clinical symptoms of COVID-19 and associated factors may help health workers to diagnose and manage the disease. Assessment of COVID-19’s clinical symptoms is therefore necessary to support health workers in Banten, Indonesia. Materials and Methods: In this descriptive cross-sectional study, we purposively analysed 1492 medical records from our online COVID-19 database. All data were analysed in a consecutive manner and were shown as percentages or significances. Results: Medical records revealed that 577 patients (39%) were male and 915 (61%) were female. Our sample contained 106 patients (7%) who tested positive for COVID-19. Among these 106 patients, 70 were asymptomatic (66%) while the rest (34%) had single or multiple clinical symptoms. The most common symptom was fever (16%), followed by cough (15%), fatigue (11%), headache (11%), dysphagia (10%), rhinorrhoea (8%), nausea (7%), dyspnoea (4%) and diarrhoea (2%). Subsequently, gender differences were found to be significantly associated with positive cases (p<0.05), the appearance of clinical symptoms (p<0.05), and decision whether to hospitalize or self-isolate (p<0.05). Conclusion: Fever, cough and fatigue predominated in the COVID-19 symptoms reported by our patients. Additionally, gender differences should be carefully considered in developing better management processes.