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Objective: To evaluate the levels of information regarding the current emerging outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) among medical and dental students at universities in Saudi Arabia through an online questionnaire Methods: A detailed structured questionnaire was prepared, containing demographic profiles and questions related to knowledge and awareness of the COVID-19 pandemic, and was emailed to 240 subjects, out of these, 209 responded to all the questions Results: The majority of the respondents were aware of the current and past epidemics of the coronavirus diseases, and they heard about SARS or MERS (89 5%) and the COVID-19 pandemic (94 7%) Internet was the main source of information (63 1%) followed by professors and physicians (24 2%), print media (6 1%), television (4%), and family or friends (2 5%) The majority of respondents received information about COVID-19 from the Ministry of Health (85 6%) and 44 5% of respondents participated in the COVID-19 symposium or conference Respondents of the college of Medicine were more aware (96 1%) about COVID-19 than respondents of the college of Dentistry (86 2%;p=0 02) Conclusion: The study finds a high level of COVID-19 awareness among medical and dental students at KSA universities However, there is a need to study in a community-level assessment regarding knowledge about COVID-19 © 2020, Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine All rights reserved
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