COVID-19 epidemic in Vietnam: A study on knowledge, attitudes and prevention of pharmacy students

Abstract

Pharmacists play a variety of roles in supporting the health care system. The COVID-19 epidemic originated in China and has spread to many countries around the world. In the context of the current COVID-19, additional support from pharmacists' human resources will be needed in the future. This research survey explores the knowledge, attitude, and prevention strategies in Vietnam during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research aims to collect data from Vietnamese students in Ho Chi Minh City's pharmacy sector. The following objectives are to study the awareness of the COVID-19 virus, acts of prevention, risk awareness, and compliance measures to prevent further outbreaks of COVID -19 in Ho Chi Minh City. This cross-sectional survey used anonymous questionnaires that investigated the knowledge, attitudes, and prevention of Vietnamese students' COVID-19 epidemic. The unit of analysis consists of undergraduate pharmacy students from the first year to the last year. Data were collected during April and May 2020. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS. Pharmacy students in this study were 80% female. The main source of information for pharmacy students to access information about COVID-19 epidemics from websites of the health authorities (31.7%) and news from television and newspapers (40.2 %). The Cronbach alpha coefficients of the three main factors in this study were knowledge (0.74), attitude (0.85), and prevention of COVID-19 (0.89), which show acceptable internal consistency. This research has shown no statistically significant difference between pharmacy students' demographics in three KAP variables, and there is a strong positive correlation between the three factors. It shows the unity and social solidarity of the study participants towards COVID-19. This study shows that pharmacy students have an epidemic concern about COVID-19 today. Pharmacy student's attention knowledge, attitude and preventive COVID-19. Sources of information from television and newspapers are important and updated regularly and accurately about COVID-19 to achieve effectiveness, helping pharmacy students to be aware of COVID19 pandemic in the country and the world. Keywords— COVID-19, Pharmacy students, KAP, Community pharmacist _________________________________________________________________________________