Understanding knowledge and behaviors related to the Covid-19 epidemic in medical students in Morocco

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is accompanied with increasing morbidity and mortality and has impacted the lives of people worldwide. Health care personnel including medical school students are at high risk of exposure and transmission of the coronavirus, hence the interest in studying knowledge and attitudes towards COVID-19 to have protection for themselves, their work colleagues. Materials and Methods: descriptive cross-sectional study in November 2021 among medical students, conducted by a self-administered questionnaire, cluster sampling stratified on years of study was performed. Result: 300 students responded with a 75% response rate, with a mean age of 21.3 ± 1.4 years. About 85% of the respondents had good knowledge (GK) and 106 (35.3%) had good practice (GP) using thresholds of 85% and 77% in each case. To combat the COVID-19 pandemic, 76.7% of the study participants improved their regular hand washing, and 94.7% of them used a face mask since the outbreak; There was a significant difference between hand washing with soap and water and COVID infection. The prevalence of anti-coronavirus vaccination was 87.7%, CI= [83.4-90.9]. conclusion, medical students showed a satisfactory level of knowledge and adherence to the recommendations for protection against COVID-19 by following appropriate strategies for preventing its spread.