Perception of covid-19: knowledge, preparedness and impact on family medicine residents in Makkah, kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Background: As a result of Covid-19 pandemic, doctors across the kingdom of Saudi Arabia were recruited to provide their services to cover hospitals and quarantine facilities. This recruitment included residents from local training programs. Objectives: To assess the knowledge, preparedness and impact of COVID-19 pandemic among family medicine residents in Makkah 2020. Subjects and methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in Makkah city, Saudi Arabia among all joint program of family medicine resident physicians, levels two, three and four on September 2020 (n=120). A self-administered electronic questionnaire was used in this study. It includes sociodemographic data, COVID-19 knowledge related questions, questions regarding basic Infection control skills and the overall impact of this pandemic on resident well-being. Results: A total of 104 family Medicine residents participated in the study out of targeted 120 with a response rate of 86.7%. Most of them (75%) aged below 30 years. The total Covid-19 knowledge score ranged between 0 and 7. It was abnormally distributed (p-value of Shapiro-Wilk test was<0.001). The median and interquartile range (IQR) were 5 (4-5). Females were more knowledgeable about Covid-19 pandemic than males, p=0.047. Majority of the family medicine residents reported receiving of COVID-19 vaccine (98.1%), formal training for hand hygiene in the last two years and on wearing and removing personal protective equipments (94.2%), and participated in COVID-19 duty (92.3%). 14.4% of the residents tested positive for Covid-19 whereas 12.5% did not perform the test. Majority of them (85.6%) thought the lockdown has negatively affected their family medicine training and theoretical learning/classroom training (78.8%). Almost half (51.9) of physicians mentioned that their exam result was negatively affected by the pandemic. Most of them (72.1%) thought that the COVID-19 lockdown has increased their stress levels. Conclusion: Overall, knowledge of family medicine residents in Makkah, Saudi Arabia about Covid-19 pandemic was satisfactory; they were adequately prepared for the Covid-19 pandemic. However, majority of them thought the Covid-19 lockdown has negatively affected their family medicine training and theoretical learning/classroom training.