Objective  To examine the knowledge about prevention of conronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) among primary and middle school students in Wuhan city and the students’ preventive behavior and its influencing factors to provide evidences for developing intervention measures.

  Methods  Totally 16 431 students were selected from 18 primary and middle schools in three districts of Wuhan city with stratified cluster random sampling and an online anonymous questionnaire survey was carried out among the students from February 16 to March 1, 2020, the period with COVID-19 epidemic.

  Results  Among the 15 428 students (93.9% of the selected) with valid responses, more than 90% reported the awareness on following 6 items of knowledge about COVID-19 prevention: always wearing a face mask when going out, washing hands before eating, washing hands after toilet use, opening window for ventilation or using an air disinfecting machine for indoor air disinfection, staying at home as much as possible, and avoiding activities; however, less than a half of the students were aware of wearing a mask special for children, replacing a mask accumulatively used for 2 – 4 hours, washing hands after contacting an animal or disposing animal waste, not touching eyes, nose or mouth with hands, and having sufficient sleeping. Only 40.8% of the students were assessed with good practice about COVID-19 prevention during previous one month. Logistic regression analysis revealed following significant influencing factors for the students′ preventive behavior during previous one month: gender, age, grade, maternal occupation, maternal education, time-point answering the questionnaire, and traveling history.

  Conclusion  Personal behavior about COVID-19 prevention is at a low level among primary and middle school students in Wuhan city and relevant health education needs to be promoted among the students.