Awareness about COVID-19 symptoms and rout of transmission
In general the responses to the awareness questions regarding symptoms and route of transmission of COVID-19 were displayed in table (2). It shows that the majority of the respondents 496 (72.51%) were correctly identified its typical symptoms. While in regard to routes of transmission, most of the participants 524 (76.6%) show awareness about the disease’s route of transmission correctly, although the differences between males and females regarding the awareness were not statistically significant (P -value >0.05).
Almost all respondents had heard that the numbers of infected individuals are increasing worldwide. The majority of the studied subjects (75.1%) were satisfied with the quality and quantity of information that available and accessible for them at Saudi ministry of health official web site. Regarding knowledge about route of transmission of COVID-19, the most cited route of transmission by participants was through sneezing or coughing and personal contact (46%), followed by through contaminated objects outdoors (31%), and airborne transmission route was cited by (18%) of the participants, while only 5% don’t know.
The results of the one-way ANOVA as shown in table (3) reveals a significant difference between the means of students’ health seeking behaviors according to their levels of information about COVID-19 [F(3-277) =4.286, P -value <0.05] based on their own perceptions respectively.
Table (4) reflects the overall significant predictors of awareness, preventive measures and health seeking behaviors towards COVID-19. It shows that medical students were significantly have higher level of awareness, compliance with preventive measures and of course for health seeking behaviors (P -value < 0.05). In comparison between males and females in regard to health seeking behaviors, the results surprisingly reveal that females have positive behaviors towards health seeking attitudes than males.