[Knowledge, practices and attitudes toward volunteer work in an influenza pandemic: cross-sectional study with Peruvian medical students].

Introduction: Reductions in health personnel during disasters or epidemics such as an influenza pandemic may need to include volunteer students.

Objective: The aim of this article is to determine knowledge and practices about pandemic influenza and the attitudes towards volunteer work in Peruvian medical students.

Methods: We performed a cross-sectional analytic study by simple sampling using a survey regarding “"knowledge and practices"” about pandemic influenza and the attitudes to volunteer work.

Results: From the group of 865 students who were surveyed, 848 accepted to participate in the investigation (54% were male and their mean age was 22.1 ± 3.0). Ninety-seven percent correctly identified the spread routes of influenza and 81% knew its treatment. Regarding preventive measures, covering the mouth when coughing/sneezing and hand-washing were the most commonly recognized options (95% y 92%, respectively), and vaccination was the less recognized one (54%). The most common practice, readily acknowledged as preventive, was covering when coughing/sneezing (86%). Regarding volunteer works, students answered that it is a moral/ethical/professional obligation (77%); that a contingency university service needs to be established (88%), that it does not have to substitute for the lack of workers (49%), and that its role should be related to hospital work (83%). Coming from a public university was more associated to the concept that volunteer work was a moral obligation and that the student should be punished if he/she refuses to be a volunteer, whereas being from a private university was more related to a history of been involved in volunteering programs.

Conclusions: In general, medical students have good knowledge and practices toward influenza. There is a good disposition to volunteer their work and skills, recognizing it as a moral/ethical/professional obligation.