Knowledge of Personal Protective Equipment Use of Senior Paramedic Students before Graduation during COVID-19 Pandemic Period

ABSTRACTThis study is planned to determine the knowledge of personal protective equipment useof senior paramedic students before graduation during COVID-19 pandemic. Theresearch is a descriptive study. The universe of the study consisted of 180 seniorparamedic students studying at three universities in Izmir. When evaluating the studydata, descriptive findings were expressed as percentage, mean, standard deviation andmedian. 38.1% of the students are between 18-20 years old, 50.0% are between 21-23years old and 11.9% are 23 years old and above. 58.3% of the students participating inthe study are females and 41.7% are males. In the study, 74.4% of paramedic studentsstated that healthcare personnel working in ambulance or patient transport vehiclesshould use medical masks, gowns, gloves and eye protection while transportingsuspected COVID-19- (SARS-CoV-2) patients to the health institution. 78.5% of thestudents answered that an N95/FFP2 mask should be used while intervening and takingsamples in a patient suspected o having COVID-19. As a result, it was found that duringthe COVID-19 pandemic period, the knowledge of personal protective equipment use ofsenior paramedic students before graduation is sufficient in some cases and not clear andsufficient in some cases. It is recommended that students should be given effectivetraining on the use of PPE during the intervention of the patient with COVID-19 beforegraduation. It is known that the use of personal protective equipment is preventive in thetransmission of the virus. There are studies supporting that the contact of healthcareprofessionals with patients with covid-19 increases their anxiety. In our study, it wasthought that it would be helpful to determine whether paramedic students, who will be inthe risk group to come into contact with covid-19 patients in the prehospital area, havesufficient knowledge about the use of personal protective equipment. In this direction, itis thought that it will contribute to the content of the training on the use of personalprotective equipment during the covid-19 pandemic process