Knowledge and perceptions of medical students at the beginning of covid-19 pandemic in two nations with different human development indices

Covid-19 pandemic affected medical students in all countries of the world. These are times of challenges and opportunities to increase medical knowledge and to practice preventive measures. There is a considerable number of situations that can cause psychological symptoms in medical students, including human development. The aim of this study is to compare medical knowledge, preventive measures, and psychological perceptions in Brazilian and Mozambican medical students. Electronic questionnaires were sent by social network, then descriptive statistics and data pairing were performed. Comparison of groups data showed that internet was the first font of information for most Brazilian students (internet: 59,3%, television: 11,1%) and television was the first font most declared by Mozambicans (television: 40,7%, internet: 33,3%) (p=0,033). Brazilian students performed better in the knowledge test (global average: 74,8% vs. 53,0%, p=0,001). Mozambican student adopted preventive measures with better adherence (do not touching oral, nasal, or ocular mucosa: 85,2 vs. 51,9, p: 0,014) but reported more use of self-medication (37,0% vs. 74,1%, p=0,048). Brazilian student presented more psychological effects, as being restless (77,8% vs. 33,3%, p=0,005), with worsening in the past 30 days (48,1% vs 22,2%, p=0,049) and partial inability in 10,6 vs. 3,9 days in the last 30 days (p=0,022). Human development index, internet access, and other issues are discussed as possible important factors for these differences.