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. 2023 Nov 1;18(11):e0287716.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0287716. eCollection 2023.

Knowledge, attitudes and practices of French university students towards COVID-19 prevention-are health students better?

Elodie Alessandri-Gradt  1 , Camille Charbonnier  2 , Jean-Christophe Plantier  1 , Hélène Marini  3 , Damien Costa  4 , Isabelle Gueit  5 , Manuel Etienne  1   5 , François Caron  1   5 , Noëlle Frebourg  1 , Guillemette Unal  1 , Loïc Favennec  4 , Véronique Merle  3
Affiliations

Knowledge, attitudes and practices of French university students towards COVID-19 prevention-are health students better?

Elodie Alessandri-Gradt et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

During the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, public health measures (PHM) were implemented to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2. At university, we wondered whether health students would be more likely to comply with these safety measures against infectious disease transmission compared to other students. Thus, we collected 1 426 university students' responses to an online anonymous survey to describe their knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) of COVID-19 prevention measures and to compare the opinions and practices of health students and science students at the same university of Rouen Normandy (France). A higher proportion of science students (84.6%) compared to health students (73.9%) reported knowledge of the university's COVID-19 protocol, p<0.001. However, the health students compared to science students reported a higher compliance with PHM at home (91.4% vs 88.0%) and at university (94.1% vs 91.1%). In a multiple regression analysis, after adjustment for age, sex and university department, factors associated with higher compliance with PHM were knowledge of the university's COVID-19 protocol and a high perceived efficacy of PHM. A SARS-CoV-2 PCR result was not predictive of compliance with PHM. The results of this online survey in French students show a high level of knowledge and practices of COVID-19 prevention Although their performances could still be improved by training, the good results of health students regarding knowledge, attitudes and practices are encouraging as these students could be an added backup force to fight against viral pandemics.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Radar showing the level of perceived efficacy of PHM items, according to sex (Male/Female).
★ effect above the threshold of test significance.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Radar showing the level of perceived efficacy of PHM items, according to university department (Health/Science).
★ effect above the threshold of test significance.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Frequency of the reasons given for non-compliance with PHMs, among respondents, at home and at university.
★ effect above the threshold of test significance.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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