Biomedical Research

Background: This study was carried out in order to determine the levels of knowledge of nursing, midwifery and medical faculty students about Zika virus infection.

Methods: The population of this descriptive study consisted of 733 students who accepted to participate in the study between May-June 2016. The analysis of the data collected with questionnaire form including the socio-demographic features aimed at determining the level of knowledge about Zika virus infection prepared by the researchers in line with the literature, and by taking the permission of the ethics committee was performed using parametric and non-parametric tests in the computer environment.

Results: The age average of the students is 20.67 ± 2.04 y, 44.1% are nursing, 34.4% are medical faculty, and 21.6% are midwifery department students. 62.1% of the students had no knowledge about Zika virus infection. It was determined that 67.8% of the participants did not know the symptoms of Zika virus infection, 74.9% did not know the ways of protection, and only 8.2% knew that it was necessary to be protected against mosquitoes. It was observed that the knowledge level total score average of the students was 53.18 ± 19.96; and the average scores of those who had knowledge about Zika virus infection, who thought that they had sufficient knowledge, and the students of the department of nursing were statistically significantly higher, and the average scores of the first-grade students were low (p<0.05).

Conclusion: In the study, it was determined that students need more information about Zika virus infection.

Author(s): Havva Sert, Meryem Pelin, Ahmet Seven, Serap Cetinkaya, Zeynep Ozge Yuksel, Dilek Aygin, Oguz Karabay
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