ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Despite the implementation of various COVID-19 prevention and control strategies, the rate of COVID-19 is alarmingly increasing in Ethiopia as well as worldwide. The success of COVID-19 prevention measures is highly influenced by a lack of knowledge and misconceptions. This study aimed to assess misconceptions about COVID-19 and associated factors among residents of Dilla Town, southern Ethiopia. METHODS: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted from December 1-30, 2020. Data was collected from 415 individuals using structured interviewer-based questionnaires. Logistic regression analyses were used to identify the relationship between the dependent and independent variables. RESULTS: The proportion of respondents who have a high misconception about COVID-19 was 41.1%. Study participants who had poor knowledge were 2.1 (95% CI: 1.1-3.8) times more likely to have a misconception about COVID-19 than their counterparts. Respondents who had access to information from more than two sources were 3.29 (with 95% CI: 1.2-9.2) times less likely to have a misconception about COVID-19 when compared with those who had access to two or fewer information sources. CONCLUSION: A significant proportion of people have misconceptions about COVID-19 in the study area. To resolve these misconceptions, health sectors and stakeholders need to improve the residents' knowledge by delivering COVID-19 related information from credible sources on a routine basis.
ABSTRACT
Previous studies have shown that secondary school students may have misconceptions about geological scientific information. By the end of secondary education these misconceptions may remain unresolved. As a result, students enter university studies and still hold them. Students of engineering, as for example civil engineering, are no exception. The aim of this study was to investigate and analyse misconceptions of this specific target group. A closed questionnaire was designed and given to 102 University students who attended the 2nd semester course "Geology for Civil Engineers” in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Patras. The questionnaire was designed and validated according to previous research findings and implemented through google forms that were prepared and given electronically to the students to fill them online. The participants completed the questionnaire on the principles of geology electronically due to Covid-19 conditions. The results showed that in some questions most of the students answered correctly while in others there were many wrong answers, which revealed their misconceptions in geology. Many misconceptions were traced especially regarding mineral properties like color and luster. An important observation was that a notable number of students confused hardness with brittleness and as a result they expressed their belief that hard minerals are hard to break. Gender and age differences were tested using appropriate statistical tests. In cases that there was a significant difference between the genders, women were the ones with higher percentage of correct answers. The results may be seen in relation to educational practices. © 2022 International Multidisciplinary Scientific Geoconference. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
This study aims to evaluate the acceptance and risk perception of pregnant and non pregnant women towards COVID-19 vaccines using a cross-sectional matched-sample study approach. A web-based questionnaire with closed- and open-ended questions was administered to adults older than 18 years in the sub-Saharan African (SSA) region. Respondents (n = 131) were grouped based on their pregnancy status (54 pregnant and 77 non pregnant women) and matched for comparison by age. The matched groups were compared using the chi-square test and the t-test where appropriate. Compared to non pregnant women, pregnant women reported significantly lower risk perception scores of COVID-19 infection (3.74 vs. 5.78, p < 0.001) and were less likely to take the COVID-19 vaccine (odds ratio = 0.12, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.06-0.27, p < 0.001). A similar proportion of pregnant and non pregnant women believed in false information about the COVID-19 vaccine, and 40% of unvaccinated pregnant women (n = 40) were concerned about the safety of the vaccine. After adjustment, women's education, marital status, belief in misconceptions and risk perception were associated with non-vaccination among pregnant women. The content analysis revealed that pregnant women refused the vaccine due to mistrust of their countries' health systems, concerns about the country where the vaccines were manufactured and a lack of confidence in the production process of the vaccines. This study shows the poor acceptance of COVID-19 vaccines among pregnant women in SSA, who perceived a lower risk of COVID-19 infection. Understanding the reasons for non-acceptance and the motivation to accept the COVID-19 vaccine could guide the development of health education and promotion programmes, and aid governments and policymakers in implementing targeted policy changes.
ABSTRACT
The ultimate cure for COVID-19 has not yet been discovered, but there is a lot of promoted traditional and food supplements claimed to be effective against the disease. Some of the promoted measures are not only associated with other adverse health outcome, but also create a sense of false protection;leading to failure to follow appropriate measures. It is crucial to identify, correct this misinformation, and to conduct clinical trials to generate evidence among those which are scientifically sound. © 2020, African Field Epidemiology Network. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
This systematic review is aimed to explore the researches that established students’ conceptual change process, both studies that facilitate conceptual change and studies that determined learner characters influencing conceptual change. Overall, 50 studies were examined in this review. The current study focused on the common characteristics of the literature, the conceptual change instructional interventions used and the methods used to assess them. This review generates four averments about the current study: (1) physics subjects have obtained more attention than other science domains;(2) the majority of studies were conducted on undergraduate students of various majors, not only science education students;(3) studies about conceptual change have developed from a cognitive-only perspective to metacognitive aspects;(4) design on conceptual change study has been dominated by quasi experiment with only pre and post-intervention. Based on these averments, the authors invite the future empirical studies to consider affective variables in designing instructional approach, focus on examining pre-service science teachers’ conceptual change through the implementation of an instructional intervention, and apply qualitative data collection methods regarding affective and metacognitive variables through the implementation of an instructional intervention. © 2022, Journal of Turkish Science Education. All Rights Reserved.
ABSTRACT
Period poverty is defined as lack of access to hygiene products, financial constraints and difficulties in disposing of menstrual management waste materials. The outbreak of COVID-19 that hit the world is now adding more difficulties to people in Malaysian society who are affected in terms of menstrual management. Period poverty has put pressure on the urban poor especially during the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic over the past two years, forcing many women to put aside the desire to buy sanitary products because they have to prioritize other necessities. This study aims to identify the problems of period poverty occurring among the urban poor in Malaysia during the pandemic. As a literature highlight review, the approach of this research is qualitative using the method of document analysis. The research finds that period poverty has hit the urban poor badly during this ongoing pandemic and it invites health problems when old papers and newspapers are used as sanitary pads such as urinary tract and perinatal infections.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Medical students are likely to be exposed to COVID-19 patients, so achieving high vaccination coverage rates for COVID-19 in this group is mandatory.Willingness to vaccinate against SARS-CoV-2 as soon as possible depends on several factors.Based on this perspective, this study aims to determine vaccine acceptance among undergraduate medical students and study the barriers toCOVID-19 vaccination including various myths and misconceptions among the students. METHODOLOGY: The current cross-sectional study was carried out among 400 undergraduate medical students in a tertiary health centre in Chennai by using simple random sampling method. A semi-structured questionnaire was utilized to obtain information about the socio-demographic data, myths and concerns regarding COVID-19 vaccination. RESULTS:All the students are vaccinated against COVID-19. Above 50% of students are concerned about the serious adverse events from the currently available COVID-19 vaccines. Nearly 60% of students perceive themselvesas not at elevated risk of acquiringCOVID-19infection. Around 40% of students think all age groupsare eligible for COVID-19 vaccination. Only 5.8% of students believevaccine approval alone does not guarantee its safety. CONCLUSION:The undergraduate medical students lack awareness regarding COVID-19 vaccination eligibility, concerns regarding adverse events and the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine.As future health care providers, medical students' concerns should be prioritized.
ABSTRACT
Purpose: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine is the key to getting out of the pandemic. However, acceptance of the vaccine has been affected by false information and rumors, which have kept people from getting the shot since it was rolled out. Materials and Methods: This study aimed to investigate the various misconceptions surfaced about the COVID-19 vaccines in Africa. We performed an online survey using an anonymous questionnaire to reach out to African respondents by social media and all possible online platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and so forth. The web-based questionnaires about the myths surrounding the vaccines were extracted from nonscientific information, unproven statements, social media posts, news reports, and people's concerns about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines. Participants indicated their level of agreement with each statement. Results: A total of 2,500 people responded to the online survey in Africa. The two common myths that respondents agreed with were that "since vaccines for COVID-19 have been developed, we can make vaccines for the common cold, human immunodeficiency viruses, and other diseases" (n=892, 35.7%) and that "researchers rushed the development of the COVID-19 vaccines; therefore, it is not very effective, safe and cannot be trusted" (n=595, 23.8%). The range of respondents who neither agreed nor disagreed with these myths was 12.4%-33.0%. The majority (1,931, 77.2%) indicated disagreement with the statement "after getting the COVID-19 vaccine, one can stop wearing a mask as well as taking safety precautions." Conclusion: Myths surrounding the COVID-19 vaccines have impact on acceptance. Exploring them helps public health authorities in Africa dispel them and provide accurate information to promote vaccination campaigns, education, and acceptance.
ABSTRACT
The aim of this study is to examine the cognitive structures of the secondary school students towards the concept of health. The study was carried out using the descriptive survey model, which is a research approach that intends to describe a past or present situation as it is. The study group of the research was determined by maximum diversity sampling and consisted of 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th grade secondary school students studying in Bursa and Malatya in the 2021-2022 academic year. In this study, which attempts to examine the perceptions of secondary school students regarding the concept of health, WAT (Word Association Test) was used as a data collection tool. The word association test consists of two dimensions. While there are explanations about WAT (Word Association Test) and sample WAT (Word Association Test) study in the first dimension, there is the WAT worksheet for the concept of health in the second dimension. In the analysis of the data, the words obtained regarding the answers given by the students to the key concept of health were examined in detail in a table, the threshold point was determined by considering the repeated words, and concept networks were created in this direction. In the study, secondary school students produced different words for the concept of health. Those with four or fewer frequencies of these words were not included in the analysis. The most repeated word among the words included in the analysis was "doctor". Those which followed this word were "hospital", "vaccine" and "Covid-19". As a result of the research, no difference was observed in terms of the cities in which the study was conducted or regarding class level, and similar answers were obtained in all classes. © 2022, Ozgen Korkmaz. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Objective: To determine the reasons for hesitancy regarding COVID-19 vaccines. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Combined Military Hospital, Rawalpindi Pakistan, from Feb to Jun 2021. Methodology: After Ethical Committee approval, 100 respondents were recruited, regardless of vaccination status, and requested to respond to 27 different myths and queries circulating about COVID-19 vaccines. Results: Mean age of participants was 36.25 ± 5.77 years, ranging from 15-80 years. Fifty-three were males and 47 females. 41% of subjects trusted the Sino-pharm vaccine, and 25% preferred Pfizer Bio N Tech, while 34% could not answer due to the lack of knowledge. 55% subjects showed concern about catching the infection from Vaccination. 54% considered vaccines unsafe for pregnant and breastfeeding women. 29% believed it unsafe for the elderly and those with comorbidities. 14% believed it could cause autism in children and infertility in adults. 62% individuals acknowledged that vaccines have no nano chips to track patients. 46% opined that vaccines were rushed through trials and had doubtful efficacy. 11% individuals thought vaccines could alter DNA, while most were aware of this false concept. 28% considered that vaccines were needless because recovery from COVID-19 was excellent, while 63% emphasised the need for Vaccination. 23% deemed the side effects of vaccines more dangerous than the disease itself. 85% individuals favoured use of mask and social distancing after getting the vaccine. Conclusion: Strong efforts are needed to support the COVID-19 vaccine and to eliminate negative propaganda on media outlets. © 2022, Army Medical College. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has reformed the teaching-learning processes in engineering education across the globe. Virtual classrooms substituted physical classrooms with the widespread use of online meeting platforms. The proliferation of virtual classrooms not only paved the way for accelerated digital transformation but also brought back some elementary issues in engineering education. Many engineering students face difficulties in comprehending the fundamental concepts in their courses during virtual learning. As real-world engineering solutions depend on conceptual clarity, misconceptions of basic engineering principles need to be taken seriously. If not identified, analysed and corrected with constructive feedback, misconceptions on various engineering topics can create challenging obstacles in learning. Against this backdrop, this research study introduces a novel solution titled Classification of Students Misconceptions in Individualised Learning Environment (C-SMILE). The primary objective of the C-SMILE system is to examine the usefulness of personalised automated feedback to students to enhance their conceptual understanding by pinpointing their misconceptions. Besides, we propose a method by which students' misconceptions can be effectively classified for every instructional objective in every engineering course using machine learning techniques. Our pilot-study results show that the proposed C-SMILE system can precisely classify students' misconceptions in engineering education settings. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
There has never been a pandemic of this magnitude in contemporary human history. In less than 16 months after the outbreak of the pandemic, almost 188 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and 2.5 million fatalities have been reported globally. In addition, a great deal of work has been done to discover vaccinations that are both safe and effective. In May 2021, 184 SARS-Cov-2 vaccine contestants were in pre-clinical trials, 105 were in clinical trials, and 18 vaccines had been licensed for emergency use by at least one national or international regulatory body. Till date, only 5 vaccines are given approval by WHO for emergency use that includes, Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Sinopharm, Johnson & Johnson. These vaccines include entire virus inactivated or live attenuated, virus vector, protein-based, and nucleic acid vaccines. Currently, confusing information about the COVID-19 vaccination is being disseminated across the world. During health emergency, rumors spread and caused panic, insanity, and anxiety. SARS-CoV-2 strains, on the other hand, are constantly appearing over the world. This article provides a Pakistan's perspective towards COVID-19 vaccines with an updated review.
ABSTRACT
Patients highly vulnerable for COVID-19 infection have been proposed to take priority for vaccination. However, vaccine hesitancy is usually more prevalent in these patients. Investigation around modifiable contributors of vaccine hesitancy plays a pivotal role in the formulation of coping strategies. We aimed to evaluate the impact of vaccine misconception in patients with lung cancer or pulmonary ground-glass opacity (GGO). A web-based questionnaire was constructed based on a qualitative interview with 15 patients and reviewed by a multidisciplinary expert panel. Six Likert five-scale questions were used to generate a score of vaccine misconception (SoVM), which ranged from 0 to 24 points, with a higher score indicating a higher level of misconception. A total of 61.6% (324/526) patients responded to our questionnaire. A higher proportion of low willingness patients (n = 173), compared to high willingness patients (n = 151), disagreed that cancer patients should be prioritized for COVID-19 vaccination (82.1% vs. 50.3%, p < .001) and perceived themselves to have contraindications (45.7% vs. 15.9%, p < .001). The mean SoVM was significantly lower in the high willingness group than the low willingness group (9.9 vs. 13.0, p < .001). Among the unvaccinated patients, the SoVM increased as the willingness to be vaccinated decreased (p < .0001). In multivariable logistic regression, patients with higher SoVM (OR 0.783, 95% CI 0.722-0.848), being female (OR 0.531, 95% CI 0.307-0.918) or diagnosed with lung cancer (OR 0.481, 95% CI 0.284-0.814) were independently associated with a lower willingness to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Receiver operating characteristic curve suggested that a SoVM of 11 yielded the best discrimination for predicting the willingness to receive COVID-19 vaccine (AUC = 0.724). The study findings reveal that patient misconception significantly contributes to vaccine hesitancy and needs to be addressed by evidence-based education tailored to their specific concerns.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Lung Neoplasms , COVID-19/prevention & control , COVID-19 Vaccines , China , Cross-Sectional Studies , Female , Humans , SARS-CoV-2 , Vaccination HesitancyABSTRACT
Considerable debates about the general community use of face masks for protection against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) stemmed out from differing views taken by health authorities. Misconceptions and stigmatization towards the use of face masks may hinder the containment of the COVID-19 pandemic. We address this previous debate by analyzing the advice on the community use of masks across different credible health authorities: countries that promoted the use of masks acknowledged that masks are effective but also explained the importance of their proper use along with other hygiene measures. In contrast, authorities that recommended against the community use of masks mainly cited shortage of supplies, the argument that the public do not have the adequate skills to wear them, or that wearing masks might reduce compliance with other important behaviors. We suggest promoting effective behavioral changes in personal protective measures by teaching microbiological knowledge instead of just listing out the "do's-and-don'ts."
Subject(s)
COVID-19/prevention & control , Health Education/methods , Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice , Masks , Public Health/methods , Humans , Hygiene , SARS-CoV-2ABSTRACT
The ultimate cure for COVID-19 has not yet been discovered, but there is a lot of promoted traditional and food supplements claimed to be effective against the disease. Some of the promoted measures are not only associated with other adverse health outcome, but also create a sense of false protection; leading to failure to follow appropriate measures. It is crucial to identify, correct this misinformation, and to conduct clinical trials to generate evidence among those which are scientifically sound.