Knowledge and Acceptance of COVID-19 (SARS CoV2) Vaccination among Foundation students in a College in Kedah, Malaysia

Abstract

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.