Myths and realities: A novel study on COVID-19 among the medical students of Rural university of Sindh, Pakistan

Background: The COVID-19 first appeared in Wuhan city of China. It was treated as a case of pneumonia having no etiology, first appeared in December 2019. Its spread was at a rapid pace worldwide. It was named as COVID-19 by the World Health Organization on 11^th February 2020, as of 5^th June 2020, there are 87,113 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Pakistan. Method: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted on 196 students of SMBBMU through an online questionnaire. It was self-generated and evaluated by epidemiologists. The questionnaire was developed through the WHO advisory from the Coronavirus disease advice for public: Myth busters. It contains socio-demographic information and Twenty-four (24) questions related to myths and knowledge for COVID-19 and the response of questions was taken on true/false basis. Results: A total of 196 students participated out of which 100 were females and 96 were males, the mean age of the participants was 22.4005 ± 4.97, and 168(85.7%)participants were unmarried. The highest ratio involved in this study was of the first year, which was about 82 (41.8%). The most common source of information was social media (n=118; 60.2%). Overall,77.21% of the students were aware of the myths and realities regarding COVID-19.Data were analyzed through SPSS 24.Conclusion:The students had sound knowledge regarding the myths and realities of COVID-19.It is the responsibility of public health care providers to spread this knowledge into every part of the country through social media and other sources at their disposal.