COVID-19 AS A HEALTH EDUCATION CHALLENGE: A PERSPECTIVE CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY

Daniela Mazzuca¹, Marcello Della Corte¹, Francesca Guarna¹, Margherita Pallocci^{2, *}, Pierluigi Passalacqua², Santo Gratteri¹

¹Department of Surgical and Medical Sciences, University “Magna Græcia” of Catanzaro, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy - ²Department of Biomedicine and Prevention, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Via Montpellier 1, 00133 Rome, Italy

Introduction: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread throughout China and has been involving Italy since February 2020. In March, Italy is the 1st Country worldwide for number of deaths. Continuous spreading may be due to lack of knowledge about gravity of disease, way to prevent it and risk behaviors. It is important during a pandemic to set up appropriate preventative and information campaigns. 

Materials and methods: We used an anonymous multiple-choice questionnaire sent by mail to evaluate the knowledge about the principal aspects of disease, related to prevention skills, clinical basis, false myths, and personal elective way of information. The same questionnaire was proposed in April 2020, when pandemic began, and after one year, to analyze all possible changes.

Results: A total of 1000 persons aged from 18 to 74 were selected for our study. Knowledge about basic rules of prevention was good, while they didn’t have an appropriate one about main clinical characteristic. Many participants believed in controversial measures of prevention.

Conclusions: This study shows the need to apply all the strategies of medical education for a correct management of an epidemic, including prevention and technical notices. The lack of knowledge can stimulate the development of non-scientific theories and inappropriate behaviour.