Discussion
COVID-19 pandemic in Saudi Arabia as other countries around the globe is
considered one of the most challenging threats to national public
health. Since there is no vaccine or treatment for COVID-19, awareness
about it is crucial for preventing the spread of this pandemic.
Therefore, the main goal of the current study was to assess the level of
awareness, health seeking behaviors and preventive measures towards
COVID-19. The findings reveal that, although some variability was noted
in knowledge in regard to COVID-19 causes, symptoms and route of
transmission. 72.51% of the participants in the current study have good
knowledge and they correctly identified the causes, symptoms and route
of transmission of the disease.
The high level of awareness among our university students could be due
to the effectiveness of different awareness campaigns that were
conducted by Saudi Ministry of Health around the country beside the
abundant information that available in social media. This finding was in
accordance with what had been reported by Pranav et al. who concluded
that 71.2% of their studied students in Mumbai (India) were reporting
correct answers regarding the awareness about
COVID-1918. Although, it is a bit less than what had
been reported by Alzoubi et al who stated that the level of awareness
about symptoms of COVID-19 among their studied sample in Jordan which
was more than 90%19.
In contrast our obtained result regarding awareness is higher than what
had been concluded by by Rhea et al in India (48%) and also higher than
what had been reported by Chesser et al in USA at Wichita State
University which was only 18% of their sample identified the symptoms
correctly20,21.
The possible explanation of the differences between these results could
because the data collection processes performed by different measurement
instruments as well as the different sample sizes and different
populations with different cultures.
In regard to source of information for the students about COVID-19
issues, the majority of the participants in the current study 51% cited
that social media was their main source. Interestingly, this obtained
result support the evidences published in numerous of studies,
indicating that the most cited source of getting information regarding
COVID-19 was the social media22,23,18. This could be
due to the fact that this age generations are called techno-generation
in most countries.
In terms of health seeking behaviors, our study concluded that
556(81.3%) of our studied participants believe that they should wear
face mask when leaving their homes. The highest percentage of positive
responses were significantly noticed among medical students. The
findings of the current study in this specific matter are similar to
those from other studies that conducted in India, Jordan and
China18,19,24. Additionally, college affiliation was
significantly has an impact on the total knowledge and behavior scores
among the students which was high among those at medical colleges.