Objective To understand the knowledge of epidemic prevention of corona virus disease 2019(COVID-19) and mental health status among some college students in Bengbu city.

Methods Students from two universities in Bengbu city selected by cluster sampling method were surveyed using the 12-item general health questionnaire(GHQ-12) and general condition questionnaire.

Results The awareness rates of common clinical symptoms of COVID-19(76.29% to 98.57%) and effective protection knowledge(92.25% to 99.55%) in survey participants were high.The top three sources of epidemic information came from the social platform software(53.12%), television broadcasts(22.55%) and websites(22.37%) in turn, and the trust of information from TV and broadcast sources was the highest(98.13%).The positive detection rate of GHQ-12 was 6.00%.Compared with students of other majors, the rate of positive detection of GHQ-12 in medical students was significantly higher(P < 0.01).The positive detection rates of GHQ-12 in sophomore, junior, senior and master students were significantly higher than that of freshmen(P < 0.01).

Conclusions During the epidemic of COVID-19, the cognitive status of disease prevention knowledge in students from two colleges in Bengbu is better, and the different levels of mental health problems is found in small number of students.