Effectiveness of students’ seminar in improving the knowledge about zika disease among medical students

Zika disease-an emerging disease caused by zika virus and transmitted through infected aedes
mosquito. The disease has a potential for international spread and World Health Organization
declared the disease as Public health Emergency of International Concern on February 1, 2016.
A cross sectional study was done among medical students to assess the level of knowledge about Zika
disease and to evaluate the effect of students’ seminar in improving the knowledge about the disease.
A pre and post Quasi-experimental study were done using a self-administered structured
questionnaire among 135 third MBBS medical students in the month of Feb 2016. Students’ seminar
with didactic lecture and open discussion was used as a teaching method. Post test was conducted.
McNemar's test and paired t-test were used to analyze the pre and post-test difference in proportion
and mean score respectively. The significant increase in the proportion of correct response was
observed in all aspects of Zika disease, i.e., epidemiological factors involved in transmission, clinical
features, prevention and control of the disease. The Baseline mean total score was 10.24±2.3. The
mean total score after the seminar was 15.39±1.3 and the difference was statistically significant
(p=<0.001). Students seminar can be used as a teaching method to impart scientific knowledge in the
large group of medical students regarding the new entity like Zika.