HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONAL STUDENTS' PERSPECTIVE ON MASK WEARING POST-COVID-19

TYPE: Abstract TOPIC: Education, Research, and Quality Improvement PURPOSE: This study intends to evaluate healthcare professional students’ (HPS) perspectives on wearing surgical masks post-COVID-19. METHODS: This study was approved by IRB. An anonymous survey was sent to HPS in a selected healthcare academic institution in Southern California. The survey had questions regarding hospital mask-wearing behaviors (MWB) before COVID-19 during flu seasons (FS) and their MWB after the pandemic. RESULTS: A total of 170 healthcare professional students with a mean age of 24.9±3.3 responded to the survey. The characteristics of the study population included 89 (52.4%) females. The majority were medical students 153 (90%) followed by 10 (5.9%) respiratory therapy students and 7 (4.1%) nursing students. Most of the sample, 141 (83.4%) had clinical experience in their current program. One hundred and fifty-three respondents (91%) agree that wearing a surgical mask can reduce infection and limit transmission of infectious diseases. However, prior to COVID-19, only 82 (48.2%) wore masks during specific face-to-face patient treatments and 52 (30.6%) reported that they never wore it. Workplace protocol (69.4%), no one else wears it (47.1%), and infection risk is minimal (44.7%) contributed to their lack of MWB in the hospital. Since COVID-19, 137 (80.1%) reported that the experience had influenced their health risk prevention choices. Going through COVID-19 has significantly affected their MWB in hospital in general and during FS, p<0.001. CONCLUSIONS: In this preliminary study, we found that HPS will likely keep wearing masks post COVID-19 pandemic. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: Understanding future healthcare workers’ perceptions of MWB can help reduce FS cases as well as other outbreaks. DISCLOSURE: Laren D Tan is a speaker/consultant for AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Regeneron, Sanofi Genzyme, Novartis and Boston Scientific. KEYWORD: Mask Wearing Behavior