Attitudes towards pandemic and their relationship with resilience in Peruvian medical students

Abstract

Introduction: Medical students are one of the population groups most affected by COVID-19.

Objective: To determine attitudes towards the COVID-19 pandemic and their relationship with resilience in medical students at the beginning of the quarantine in Peru. Methods: An analytical cross-sectional study was carried out in medical students from two universities in the city of Ica in Peru. The questions referring to attitudes towards the pandemic were elaborated by the authors and resilience was measured through the Spanish version of the Connor-Davidson resilience scale (CD-RISC-10).

Results: 431 correctly completed virtual surveys were included. Students with positive attitudes toward the pandemic had higher resilience scores (p < 0.05). The overall median resilience score was 31 (IQR: 27-35) and the correlation between positive attitudes total score and resilience total score was positive, low, but highly significant (Spearman's Rho = 0.34, p < 0.001).

Conclusions: At the beginning of the COVID-19 quarantine in Peru, medical students in the city of Ica had positive attitudes toward the evolution of the pandemic. These positive attitudes were significantly correlated with levels of resilience.