PERCEPTION OF HEALTH CARE UNDERGRADUATES TOWARDS PUBLIC HEALTH COURSE WITHIN HEALTH COLLEGE'S CURRICULUM -AN OBSERVATIONAL STUDY FROM SAUDI UNIVERSITY, IN RIYADH REGION, SAUDI ARABIA

Public Health (PH) competencies are an increasingly important part of healthcare training; however, there is currently no integrated formal public health curriculum in the Saudi Arabian (SA) educational system, and perceptions of pharmacy and nursing students towards public health have not been reported. The purpose of this study was to analyse healthcare students' perceptions and awareness of the Public Health course within the Health College's curriculum at King Saud University (KSU) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A cross-sectional observational study was carried out between January and March 2023 at KSU in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, among undergraduate students of pharmacy and nursing. All responses were anonymized and selfreported. A total of 161 students participated in the survey. Among those 39.1% were female students, 36.9% of them were aged between 18 - 20 years old (n = 59) and 35.6% of them were (n = 57) between 21 and 22 years old. Considering the course of study, approximately 65% (n = 104) of the students belonged to the pharmacy. The majority of the students 142 (88.2%) heard about the term "public health", while 83.2% (n = 134) of the students received a course that discussed or was similar to public health. About 90.1% of them (n = 146) agreed that public health courses should be included in all health colleges and the same proportion of students believed that these courses are important for health college students before graduation. A significant association was found between courses of study of health care students and interested in learning more about public health (p = 0.011). Undergraduate pharmacy and nursing students are interested in public health careers but lack formalized public health education during their course studies, needed to support and encourage integrating public health into their future careers.