Hacettepe Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi’nde Okuyan Öğrencilerin Yeni Koronavirüs Hastalığı (COVID-19) Mücadelesinde Bireysel Kapasitelerinin, Sağlık ile İlgili Sorumluluk Algılarının Geliştirilmesine Yönelik Niteliksel ve Niceliksel Bir Araştırma

Abstract

In this research, it was aimed to evaluate the current status, the knowledge, the adaptation to preventive behaviours, the sense of health responsibility about Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) and to contribute to the development of the capacity to fight against the disease through health education of the students who are studying at Hacettepe University Faculty of Education in the fall semester of 2021-2022. Qualitative and quantitative methods were used consecutively in this research. Between November and December 2021, qualitative stage of the study was carried out among 20 students and semi-structured interviews were used. Students' views and senses about the research aims and their educational needs were understood more in detail. Then, the educational intervention was carried out for two weeks with a total of eight hours. Before and after the intervention, pre-test and post-test were applied to the students, and the targeted differences, that were in line with the aims of the study, were determined. The data collection form was created by the reasearchers and the "Fear of COVID-19 Scale" and "Attitudes Towards the COVID-19 Vaccine" were used in addition. SPSS 23.0 was used in the analysis of the quantitative data and MAXQDA v2022 was used in the analysis of the qualitative data. Ethics committee approval and other relevant official permissions were obtained in order to carry out this study. As a result of the analyzes of qualitative research, four main themes were found. These themes were "Psychosocial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic", "Methods of fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic", "Information seeking behavior in the COVID-19 pandemic", "The role of teachers in the COVID-19 pandemic". 73.1% of all 245 individuals that participated quantitative research were women and the mean age was 21.76±2.76. 64.5% of the participants lived in dormitories. 79.2% of the participants had never had COVID-19 disease before, 98.8% had at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, and 51.4% had vaccine hesitancy before being vaccinated. 73.1% used the Turkish Ministry of Health website and other national official websites to get information about the disease. When some capacities of the participants were compared after the pre-test and post-test; statistically significant results were found in fear scale scores (p<0.001), in disease knowledge scores (p<0.001), in infodemic scores (p<0.001), in ability to distinguish high and low quality health resources on the internet (p<0.001) and in attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccine (p<0.001). As a result, in terms of protecting their own health and their students’ health, it is important to increase the capacity of teacher candidates to fight against COVID-19. It is also important for them to learn and develop these through health promotion activities (such as health education) before their graduation so that they can perform the skills which are expected from them. In this research, it has been proven that this type of health education intervention studies can be beneficial. In matters concerning public health, intersectoral cooperation and joint work with other professions (other than health care providers) are crucially important