Journal of Health Care and Research

Journal of Health Care and Research

Suwanbamrung C^1*, Kaewsawat S^1
1School of Public Health, Walailak University, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand

Corresponding Author: Charuai Suwanbamrung, RN, MSN, NP, APN, PhD. ^{ORCID ID}
Address: Assoc. Prof. Dr. in School of Public Health, and the Excellent Center for Dengue and Community Public Health (EC for DACH), Walailak University, Nakhorn Si Thammarat Province, 80161, Thailand.
Received date: 21 September 2020; Accepted date: 23 October 2020; Published date: 30 October 2020

Citation: Suwanbamrung C, Kaewsawat S. Public Health Students’ Reflection regarding the First Case of Coronavirus Disease 2019 in a University, Southern Thailand. J Health Care and Research. 2020 Oct 30;1(3): 182-92.

Copyright © 2020 Suwanbamrung C, Kaewsawat S. This is an open-access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Keywords: Reflection, COVID-19, Qualitative Study, Public Health Student

Abstract

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a pandemic disease. In Thailand, public health professionals are the main stakeholder for risk management. The aim was to explore the reflections of the public health students regarding the first case of a COVID-19 patient near a university area, southern Thailand.
Study design: The cross-sectional qualitative study.
Methods: The study was conducted written on one page which contained four elements of the reflection concept. Students’ reflections were collected by the researcher after oral consent. The data analysis used the thematic analysis technique and included the following five steps: 1) reading and rereading to understand reflections, 2) identifying the coding, 3) setting the category of the coding in relation to meanings, 4) interpreting the theme based on their meaning and related phenomena, and 5) setting the main themes.
Results: Ninety public health students that studied at a 3^rd level classification of a community public health program. Almost all (77) were women (85.6%), were 20-21 years old, and had received information regarding the coronavirus outbreak from social media, family members, other students, lecturers, and other people. The 17 themes and 35 sub-themes of the reflection concept included three themes’ regarding the seven sub-themes of “What I faced”, five themes regarding the six sub-themes of “What I did”, four themes regarding the seven sub-themes of “What Happened”, and five themes regarding the 19 sub-themes of “So what or now what” elements.
Conclusions: The reflections of the public health students are important for lecturers, the university, and their parents for supporting and guiding them to prevent the transmission of COVID-19.