Abstract

Background: First recognized in December 2019 in Wuhan Hubei Province of China, and christened COVID-19 by the World Health Organization (WHO), this viral agent rapidly became of international concern fulfilling the criteria for a pandemic. This study aims to evaluate the knowledge and psychosocial impact (well-being) among returning clinical students in a private medical university in the year 2021. Materials and Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among arriving clinical students in a private medical university. Semi-structured questionnaire was used to obtain data from clinical students. Data was analysed using the IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.0. Results: A 98.0% response rate was achieved with seventy-six (76) respondents in the study. There were 33 (43.4%) males and 43 (56.6%) female respondents. Seventy-two (94.7%) respondents were less than 25 years of age, and only 4 (5.3%) were between 25 and 40 years. All the respondents asserted to being aware of COVID-19 disease even before the survey. Knowledge of the causative agent, mode of transmission, symptomatology, indices for disease severity, and public health preventive measures of COVID-19 disease were above average among respondents. The World Health Organization Well-Being Index (WHO-5) revealed a mean score of 49.79, with poor well-being index among 31.6% of respondents, fair among 17.1%, good among 19.7% and excellent among 31.6%. Conclusion: Knowledge of COVID-19 disease was above average among most respondents.