Knowledge, behaviors and opinions of medical faculty students during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Aim: The emergency of COVID-19 pandemic has severely affected medical students’ education and the possibility of being consideredas health-care professionals has come to mind. We described knowledge, behaviours and opinions of medical students during thepandemic and separated into the continents and compared them with our country.Materials and Methods: The cross-sectional worldwide study including 26 items online questionnaire was conducted betweenMarch 24th and April 9th, 2020.Medical students were grouped according to their continent and Turkey as a separate group.Results: 1454 medical students studying in 64 countries from 4 continents including Asia, Europe, South America and Africaparticipated in study. Only 23.7% of all was adequately informed about approach to outbreak situations. This was the lowest inEurope and followed by Turkey (20.8%, 21.7% respectively).71.2% of all changed their hygiene habits; paying attention to socialdistance increased from 2% to 61.9%. In Africa, 58.6% of students feel qualified to work in hospitals voluntarily, whereas it was only19.9% in Turkey and 29.2% in Europe (p