The pandemic brought a whole newfound collection of words into our everyday language, some of which had been terms that were infrequently used outside academic and medical settings. However, as familiar as this new pandemic vocabulary has become, there are still several terms that often get mixed in everyday conversations, media communications, and even in the medical field. Some of these terms are often mistaken, which may lead to issues in the understanding of important concepts. Science communication, as a facet of scientific literacy, intends to educate people in an easy-to-understand manner, and this communication is even more important in health care, when a literate patient's medical decisions depend frequently on this process. In this article, we explore the use and misuse of some of the most common terms utilized during the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic by nursing and medical students, i.e., future health care professionals, in the hospital environment. This single-center hospital-based cross-sectional study, performed throughout September 2022, included 30 medical and nursing students. All participants completed a self-administered 15-item anonymous questionnaire at a single time point. Nine multiple-choice questions evaluated knowledge, diagnosis, disease manifestations, and vaccines related to the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus. Six questions provided demographics and quality assessment information. The analysis of the answers indicated that for at least 75% of the population surveyed, COVID-19 literacy was better for terms related to technology and actions (3/5 questions answered correctly) than for terms related to the disease (1/4 questions answered correctly). The overall median score for questions 1 to 9 was 4.5 of 9 points in total. Based on the results, the language used in the questionnaire was considered easy to understand, with an easy to medium level of complexity, and the perceived time required to complete the questionnaire was less than 5 min. In conclusion, our results showed that efforts need to be made in continuous professional education to increase the knowledge in COVID-19 literacy in the health care environment for medical and nursing students. Larger studies are recommended to identify and to fulfill the challenges that COVID-19 brought to medical and nursing education.

中文翻译：

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医学和护理专业学生的 COVID-19 科学素养。

大流行给我们的日常语言带来了全新的词汇集合，其中一些词汇在学术和医疗环境之外很少使用。然而，尽管这个新的流行病词汇已经变得很熟悉，但在日常对话、媒体交流甚至医学领域中，仍有几个术语经常混用。其中一些术语经常是错误的，这可能会导致对重要概念的理解出现问题。科学传播作为科学素养的一个方面，旨在以一种易于理解的方式教育人们，这种传播在医疗保健中更为重要，因为有文化的患者的医疗决定常常取决于这一过程。在本文中，我们探讨了在 2019 年冠状病毒病 (COVID-19) 大流行期间护理和医学生（即未来的医疗保健专业人员）在医院环境中使用和误用一些最常见的术语。这项以医院为基础的单中心横断面研究在整个 2022 年 9 月进行，包括 30 名医学和护理专业的学生。所有参与者都在一个时间点完成了一份自填的 15 项匿名问卷。九个选择题评估了与严重急性呼吸系统综合症冠状病毒 2 (SARS-CoV-2) 病毒相关的知识、诊断、疾病表现和疫苗。六个问题提供了人口统计和质量评估信息。对答案的分析表明，至少 75% 的受访者表示，与疾病相关的术语（正确回答 1/4 的问题）相比，与技术和行动相关的术语（正确回答 3/5 的问题）的 COVID-19 识字率更高。问题 1 至 9 的总体中位数得分为 4.5 分，总分为 9 分。根据结果​​，问卷中使用的语言被认为易于理解，具有简单到中等的复杂程度，完成问卷所需的感知时间少于 5 分钟。总之，我们的结果表明，需要在持续专业教育方面做出努力，以增加医学和护理专业学生在医疗保健环境中的 COVID-19 素养知识。建议进行更大规模的研究，以确定并应对 COVID-19 给医学和护理教育带来的挑战。