COVID‐19: Knowledge, anxiety, academic concerns and preventative behaviours among Australian and Indian undergraduate nursing students: A cross‐sectional study
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Abstract
Aims and Objectives
To compare knowledge, anxiety, academic concerns and preventative behaviours between
undergraduate nursing students in Australia and India during the COVID‐19 pandemic.
Background
Based on the World Health Organization's direction for containment of the novel coronavirus
(COVID‐19), countries implemented varying levels of restrictions including closure
of university campuses and providing on line undergraduate education.
Methods
Students in NSW, Australia and Kerala, India completed an online survey assessing
their (a) knowledge and source of information about COVID‐19; (b) anxiety; and coping
strategies; (c) academic concerns; and (d) preventative behaviours. Descriptive and
inferential statistics were used to summarise the data.
Results
Data from 99 Australian and 113 Indian undergraduate nurses were analysed. Greater
number of Indian students indicated having sufficient knowledge of COVID‐19 (OR 0.22;
95% CI 0.08, 0.63), getting information about COVID‐19 from social media (OR 0.03;
95% CI 0.01, 0.07) and being concerned about ‘attending clinical placement’ (MD‐1.08;
95% CI −1.94, −0.23). Australian students reported significantly higher levels of
anxiety (MD 1.99 95% CI 1.21, 2.78), difficulty sleeping (OR 18.00; 95% CI 6.76, 47.96),
concentrating (OR 33.22; 95% CI 13.85, 79.67) and eating (OR 14.05; 95% CI 3.19, 61.84).
Greater number of Australian students indicated that they would go to the University
if they needed to meet with other students (OR 9.21; 95% CI 3.08, 27.55), had to access
the library (OR 7.20; 95% CI 3.26, 15.90) or had a group assignment (OR 2.93; 95%
CI 1.26, 6.77).
Conclusions
Wide variations were present in knowledge, anxiety, academic concerns and preventative
behaviours among undergraduate nursing students in two countries.
Relevance to clinical practice
Undergraduate students may benefit from additional support from the University and
staff in the clinical setting with online learning and resources in order to adjust
to the ‘new normal’ and enable them to achieve academic success.
Highlights • Methods of guiding students to effectively and appropriately regulate their emotions during public health emergencies and avoid losses caused by crisis events have become an urgent problem for colleges and universities. Therefore, we investigated and analyzed the mental health status of college students during the epidemic for the following purposes. (1) To evaluate the mental situation of college students during the epidemic; (2) to provide a theoretical basis for psychological interventions with college students; and (3) to provide a basis for the promulgation of national and governmental policies.
We address the diffusion of information about the COVID-19 with a massive data analysis on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit and Gab. We analyze engagement and interest in the COVID-19 topic and provide a differential assessment on the evolution of the discourse on a global scale for each platform and their users. We fit information spreading with epidemic models characterizing the basic reproduction number \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$R_0$$\end{document}
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R 0 for each social media platform. Moreover, we identify information spreading from questionable sources, finding different volumes of misinformation in each platform. However, information from both reliable and questionable sources do not present different spreading patterns. Finally, we provide platform-dependent numerical estimates of rumors’ amplification.
This article is being made freely available through PubMed Central as part of the
COVID-19 public health emergency response. It can be used for unrestricted research
re-use and analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original
source, for the duration of the public health emergency.
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