Fulltext

Assessing disparities in medical students' knowledge and attitude about monkeypox: a cross-sectional study of 27 countries across three continents

Abd ElHafeez S 1 , Gebreal A 2 , Khalil MA 3 , Youssef N 4 , Sallam M 5 , Elshabrawy A 6 Show all authors , Abdel-Rahman S 6 , Mahboob AS 7 , Yazbek S 8 , Elbanna EH 7 , Adhyaru R 9 , Rodoshi ZN 10 , Kih YS 11 , Jawad H 12 , Kolotouros E 13 , Jaworski A 14 , AlQarni G 15 , Gablan M 16 , Condurat A 17 , Elden AESN 18 , Bennani O 19 , Rawat K 20 , Ismail A 21 , Al-Hajj Y 22 , Elehamer NMK 23 , Nagi J 24 , Admassu H 25 , Al Asaad SH 26 , Duvuru R 27 , Ogunlana O 28 , Alosaimi B 29 , Ghazy RM 7

Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Epidemiology, High Institute of Public Health, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt
  • 2 Faculty of Medicine, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt
  • 3 Department of Basic Medical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh Second Health Cluster, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
  • 4 Department of Medical-Surgical Nursing, College of Nursing, Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
  • 5 Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Forensic Medicine, School of Medicine, The University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan
  • 6 Department of Biostatistics and Demography, Faculty of Graduate Studies for Statistical Research, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt
  • 7 Tropical Health Department, High Institute of Public Health, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt
  • 8 Faculty of Public Health, Lebanese University, Beirut, Lebanon
  • 9 David Tvildiani Medical University, Tbilisi, Georgia
  • 10 Mymensingh Medical College and Hospital, Mymensingh, Bangladesh
  • 11 Taylor's University School of Medicine, Subang Jaya, Malaysia
  • 12 College of Health and Sport Sciences, University of Bahrain, Manama, Bahrain
  • 13 Faculty of Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
  • 14 Faculty of Medicine, Wroclaw Medical University, Wrocław, Poland
  • 15 College of Medicine, King Faisal University, Al-Ahsa, Saudi Arabia
  • 16 Faculty of Medicine, Yarmouk University, Irbid, Jordan
  • 17 University of Medicine and Pharmacy "Grigore T. Popa", Iași, Romania
  • 18 Department of Basic Medical and Dental Sciences, Faculty of Dentistry, Zarqa University, Zarqa, Jordan
  • 19 Faculty Mohammed VI of Medicine and Pharmacy, Oujda, Morocco
  • 20 Government Doon Medical College, Dehradun, India
  • 21 Department of Medicine, Jinnah Sindh Medical University, Karachi, Pakistan
  • 22 Faculty of Medicine, Beirut Arab University, Beirut, Lebanon
  • 23 Faculty of Public and Environmental Health, University of Khartoum, Khartoum, Sudan
  • 24 Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
  • 25 Addis Ababa University CMHS, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
  • 26 Faculty of Medicine, Syrian Private University, Damascus, Syria
  • 27 College of Medicine, Mohammed Bin Rashid University, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
  • 28 College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria
  • 29 Research Center, King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh Second Health Cluster, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Front Public Health, 2023;11:1192542.
PMID: 37575128 DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1192542

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: The recent monkeypox (Mpox) outbreak confirmed by the World Health Organization (WHO) underscores the importance of evaluating the knowledge and attitude of medical students toward emerging diseases, given their potential roles as healthcare professionals and sources of public information during outbreaks. This study aimed to assess medical students' knowledge and attitude about Mpox and to identify factors affecting their level of knowledge and attitude in low-income and high-income countries.

METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 11,919 medical students from 27 countries. A newly-developed validated questionnaire was used to collect data on knowledge (14 items), attitude (12 items), and baseline criteria. The relationship between a range of factors with knowledge and attitude was studied using univariate and multivariate analyses.

RESULTS: 46% of the study participants were males; 10.7% were in their sixth year; 54.6% knew about smallpox; 84% received the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine; and 12.5% had training on Mpox. 55.3% had good knowledge of Mpox and 51.7% had a positive attitude towards it. Medical students in their third, fifth, or sixth year high- income countries who obtained information on Mpox from friends, research articles, social media and scientific websites were positive predictors for good knowledge. Conversely, being male or coming from high-income countries showed a negative relation with good knowledge about Mpox. Additionally, a positive attitude was directly influenced by residing in urban areas, being in the fifth year of medical education, having knowledge about smallpox and a history of receiving the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine. Receiving information about Mpox from social media or scientific websites and possessing good knowledge about Mpox were also predictors of a positive attitude. On the other hand, being male, employed, or receiving a training program about Mpox were inversely predicting positive attitude about Mpox.

CONCLUSION: There were differences in knowledge and attitude towards Mpox between medical students in low and high-income countries, emphasizing the need for incorporating epidemiology of re-emerging diseases like Mpox into the medical curriculum to improve disease prevention and control.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

MeSH terms
Similar publications