KAP towards COVID-19: A Case Study of Undergraduate Students in Malaysia

Higher educational centres with significant numbers of young people will become acute disease hubs during a pandemic. Owing to the sizeable population of young adults, more direct social interaction, and unrestricted boundaries, universities have the capacity to become volatile, centrifugal outbreak hubs. This research examines the university student’s knowledge, attitude, and practice towards the COVID-19 pandemic in Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM), Nilai. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to obtain the data and analysed utilising SPSS software with a sample size of 2061 USIM students. Descriptive statistics, Likert scale analysis, multiple linear regression, as well as Pearson correlation, were used to identify the relationship between KAP. It was discovered that most of the USIM’s students have an excellent knowledge (85%) and attitude (73.8%) towards COVID-19. However, they moderately practice the right steps to prevent themselves from virus infection. This is very likely due to unpreparedness in responding to a critical situation such as this pandemic. In other words, it can be said that although students have a pretty good knowledge on the matter, still, attitude and practice have much room for improvement. The study finds significant relationship between practice and both knowledge and attitude.