1.Knowledge and Acceptance of COVID-19 (SARS CoV2) Vaccination among Foundation students in a College in Kedah, Malaysia
Sook-Ching Chan ; Muhamad Shahril Aiman Azrizal ; Ahmad Haziq Danial Ahmad Kamal Ariffin ; Muhammad Ilham Fahmi Mohd Zukri ; Muhammad Arees Mohamed Anwar ; Abu Ubaidah Amir Muhamad Sharman ; Muhammad Afif Shah Mohammad Aziz Shah
Malaysian Journal of Medicine and Health Sciences 2022;18(No.5):79-85
Introduction: To combat the COVID-19 pandemic, Malaysia started vaccination of front-liners and adults in the community. The latter group might have insufficient knowledge to accept COVID-19 vaccination, therefore this research
was to assess the knowledge and acceptance of COVID-19 vaccination among youths, specifically students in a
Malaysian college. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 481 foundation students in Kolej MARA
Kulim (KMKU). The minimum sample size, using Epi Info was 214. Students answered an online questionnaire using
google form which included demographic data (age, gender) and ten questions on knowledge and acceptance of
COVID-19 vaccination. For knowledge questions, students answered “yes”, “no” or “don’t know”, correct answer
scoring 1. For acceptance questions, a 5-point Likert scale was used ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly
agree”. EXCEL and SPSS version 23 were used for analysis with Chi-square test done to test association (significant for
p-value <0.05). Results: The response rate was 65.1% with 313 students, (45.4% males, and 54.6% females) aged
18-19 years. The majority (83.7%) had satisfactory to excellent knowledge scores (mean = 6.66 (SD=2.299, 95%
CI 6.40-6.91), median = 7 (± IQR =3), while 16.3% obtained poor scores (≤ 4). The majority (90%) accepted vaccination. Higher knowledge scores were associated with higher acceptance rates in both genders (p-value= 0.000).
Significantly more females (90.6%) than males (80.3%) had positive attitude towards vaccination (p-value = 0.009).
Conclusions: The majority of the foundation students in KMKU were knowledgeable on COVID-19 vaccination and
willing to receive the vaccination against the novel coronavirus.