Knowledge and awareness among physiotherapy students to combat COVID-19: A questionnaire based study

OBJECTIVE: Despite the various preventive guidelines and recommendation for infection control, the COVID-19 is spreading very extensively. So it becomes essential for healthcare professionals to have proper knowledge and awareness of it. The objective of this study was to assess the level of knowledge and Awareness among Physiotherapy students to combat COVID-19. METHODS: A total of 203 participants from MMIPR, MM(DU), Mullana completed a questionnaire based survey on the Knowledge and Awareness among Physiotherapy students to Combat COVID-19. The questionnaire was self-administrated and distributed through WhatsApp. Convenient sampling method was used for data collection and the distributions of responses were presented as frequencies and percentages. RESULTS: A total of 203 physiotherapy students participated in this survey (143 females & 60 males), forming a response rate of 53.4% (203 participated out of 380). The overall awareness for all the participants was adequate with 73.1% reporting correct answers. The findings of this study revealed that 93% of subjects (score more than 60%) have good knowledge and awareness to combat COVID-19. However, only 49% knew the correct name of the virus causing COVID-19 infection, only 41% of participants were aware about the diagnostic measures, and only 25.6% were aware of the treatment strategies. 91% of the respondents uses ‘Aarogya Setu’ app, while 85% says agrees that it helps to know more about the social distancing. CONCLUSION: We conclude that physiotherapy students of MMIPR, MM(DU), Mullana (Ambala) were well aware about the knowledge on COVID-19 infection and its preventive measures.