ABSTRACT
Background: With increasing demand of healthcare professionals to manage COVID – 19 pandemic, involvement of healthcare students with sufficient knowledge and skills can support the struggling health system. The present study was undertaken to investigate the knowledge, attitude and behavior on infection prevention and control practices for COVID – 19 among undergraduate medical (MBBS), physiotherapy, nursing and medical laboratory students (MLT). Methods: A prospective cross – sectional study was conducted between 28th January and 13th March 2021 at a tertiary care teaching hospital of Gujarat, India. Knowledge, attitude and behaviour on COVID - 19 was assessed through Google forms using self-designed, prevalidated questionnaire consisting of 35 questions. Descriptive statistics like mean, standard deviation and median was calculated for different variables. ANOVA test and Two-tailed T test were used to detect the significance among different groups for a variable. P value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Total 465 undergraduate medical and paramedical students participated with an overall knowledge score of 71.38%, attitude score of 77.27% and behaviour score was 81.24%. MLT students had significantly lower scores compared to students of other fields. No significant difference in scores was observed among various age, gender and phase of undergraduate study. Conclusion: There is acceptable but suboptimal level of knowledge and attitude but good level of practices of preventive measures regarding the COVID-19. We recommend incorporation of additional educational training programmes in the curriculum of medical and paramedical field to prepare students for supporting crumbling healthcare systems during pandemics.