Knowledge, attitude and practice on COVID-19 among students during the early phase of pandemic in a university in Borneo, Malaysia.

BACKGROUND: COVID-19 related knowledge, attitude and practice plays a major role in determining the readiness of the community to adopt the behavioural change towards recommended preventive measures outlined by public health officials. This study aims to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice regarding COVID-19 among university students as well as its associated factors. METHOD: This is a cross sectional study that was conducted among students in a public university during the early phase of COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia. An online validated self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data. Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis test was used to determine the association between independent variables with knowledge, attitude, and practice score. RESULTS: Overall response rate of this study was 92.9 (n=524). Median score of knowledge domain was 78.0 (IQR= ±12.0), median attitude score of 49.0 (IQR= ±5.0), and median practice score of 80.0 (IQR= ±11.0). The mean knowledge, attitude and practice score were significantly higher among diploma holder (vs degree holder, p<0.05), residing in main Kota Kinabalu campus (vs non-KK campus, p<0.001), studying in medical faculty (vs non-medical faculty, p<0.001), and attended COVID-19 education (vs non-attendance; p<0.05). CONCLUSION: COVID-19 related knowledge and attitude were below satisfactory level during earlier phase of the pandemic. However, majority of respondents have positive behaviour towards COVID-19 prevention. This highlights the importance of accurate and tailored health education to improve the level of knowledge, attitude and practice of recommended measures to prevent COVID-19 spread.

Life-Threatening Dyskalaemia after Barbiturate Coma Therapy: The Strategy of Management.

Barbiturate coma therapy (BCT) is a treatment option that is used for refractory intracranial hypertension after all other options have been exhausted. Although BCT is a brain protection treatment, it also has several side effects such as hypotension, hepatic dysfunction, renal dysfunction, respiratory complications and electrolyte imbalances. One less concerning but potentially life-threatening complication of BCT is dyskalaemia. This complication could present as severe refractory hypokalaemia during the therapy with subsequent rebound hyperkalaemia after cessation of the therapy. Judicious potassium replacement during severe refractory hypokalaemia and gradual cessation of the therapy to prevent rebound hyperkalaemia are recommended strategies to deal with this complication, based on previous case series and reports. In this case report, we show that these strategies were applicable in improving severe hypokalaemia and preventing sudden, life-threatening rebound hyperkalaemia. However, even with use of these strategies, BCT patients could still present with mild, asymptomatic hyperkalaemia.