Knowledge of final year medical students about diabetes mellitus during and after COVID-19 pandemic, single university experience

ABSTRACT

Introduction: COVID-19 pandemic had let to disruption of routine and medical education especially in the first few months from announcing the pandemic status globally. At Al-Mustansiriyah University in Baghdad-Iraq, there was a shift toward providing online classes where students could attend their classes from home in order to reduce the risk of infection transmission. Curfew and lockdown took place during different times in the year of announcing the pandemic 2020. Online sessions were introduced for the first time in the history of the University. Objective(s) To compare the knowledge of final year medical students at Al-Mustansiriyah University about diabetes mellitus during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Method(s) By running an online questionnaire to the 6th year medical students of classes 2019-2020 and 2021-2022. A 39 Questions included 5 main domains;demographics, pathophysiology, diagnosis, management, and technology related to diabetes mellitus. Descriptive analysis was used. Result(s) Total of 198 students responded, 129 (89F) from the first period, and 69 (43F) from the second period. The self-assessment of knowledge indicated better ratings among students in the second period compared to students from the first period. Overall more students had attended diabetology classes and felt more prepared to apply their knowledge post pandemic (table 1). The overall score for correct answers from students of class 2021-22 was higher than the score of students of class 2019-20, 64.6% versus 57.2% respectively. Conclusion(s) The pandemic had affected the students' attendance for diabetology classes, which resulted in less knowledge, that reflected on lower rating of self-assessment and confidence to deal with diabetes. Final year medical students post pandemic had better chance to learn. Those gaps in knowledge need to be bridged during the postgraduate training and education.