Purpose: The study aimed to find out about the knowledge, attitudes, and preventative practices of COVID-19 among international students in China during the pandemic.
Material and methods: A cross-section survey was conducted among 300 international students from 13 different universities in Hubei province of China between March and April 2020 which relied upon convenience sampling method.
Results: Out of 300 respondents, 153 (51%) of the respondents were female students, of which the majority were single, undergraduate students who were doing medicine (163, 54.3%) and engineering programs (68, 22.7%). The majority of international students had an impressive knowledge on the causes, risks, and spread of COVID-19, and that they were no misconception of the pandemic 229 (76%) to 281 (98%) respectively. These students also demonstrated a markedly positive attitude towards the virus and a feeling that they were almost completely safe being in China (264, 84%). Variations were found on Knowledge scores in age group (P<0.01) and majors (P=0.025), attitude scores on major of study (P=0.015), and experience (P<0.01). Furthermore, the results revealed that all the students (300, 100%) adhered to and practiced set preventive measures against COVID-19 and that there was a positive correlation between attitudes and preventative practices (r=0.219, P<0.01).
Conclusion: This study found that social media platform was contributing enormously towards information dissemination and Chinese universities were commended for their continuous notifications on COVID-19 which helped students to have full knowledge. This, in turn, was instrumental in helping students to form good attitudes and practices towards COVID-19.
Keywords: attitudes; coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19); international students; knowledge; pandemics; perception; prevention and control.
© 2021 Wu and Munthali.