Sex, Sociology & Social Distancing

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted a multitude of disparities across the United States. With primary communication methods shifting to virtual outlets, major adjustments have been made. In the literature, the collegiate population is one who may be underrepresented. There is limited research regarding their communication with healthcare providers and overall knowledge of COVID-19. The purpose of this study is to increase our understanding of Judy Genshaft Honors College students’ knowledge of and willingness to communicate electronically with their physicians. A secondary purpose examines how students utilize the Internet for COVID-19 information. The population consisted of students who are enrolled in the Judy Genshaft Honors College at the University of South Florida. A quantitative causal comparative approach was utilized. Initially, a MANOVA was conducted to identify significant trends across groups. The independent variable whether the participant identified as a frontline worker. The dependent variables were the participants responses to the survey questions regarding: comfort level communicating with their doctor, if they search the Internet for COVID-19 information, and if they trust the information on the Internet. Considering this was a pilot study, and data collection is still in progress the initial results were not significant. Overall means show that 79% of both frontline and non-frontline workers feel comfortable in contacting their doctor over email. Moreover, the overall means also indicate that 83% of both frontline and non-frontline workers search for information on COVID-19 on the Internet and of those participants 73% trust the information they found on the Internet about COVID-19