Background: With COVID-19 announced as a global pandemic, a countrywide lockdown was executed in many countries, including the Middle East. With no foregoing warning or expectation, orthodontic treatments were temporarily canceled as dental clinics and colleges were indefinitely closed. To the best of our knowledge, no study addresses the orthodontist perspective in such testing times, where they are entirely restricted to the confines of their homes. The study aims to assess the impact of the COVID-19-related lockdown on orthodontists and orthodontic postgraduate students' treatment and psychology. Materials and Methods: The survey participants consist of 315 orthodontists and orthodontic postgraduate residents from different Middle East countries. A pretested self-administered questionnaire was sent to the consenting participants through an online data collection platform (Google forms), covering participants' sociodemographics and participants' perceived impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results: A majority of the participants (87.61%) stated that the pandemic would permanently change their way of practicing orthodontics and also will lead to the reduction in the number of orthodontic patients in the future (78.73%), and a significant number of orthodontists (67.61%) has an opinion that the pandemic will not affect the viability of their profession. The majority of the respondents (88.57%) commented about the negative economic impact of COVID-19 on their income, and regarding the effect of COVID-19 on psychosocial well-being, 73.01% had experienced anxiety and depression, 88.25% were excited about the future of the profession, and 68.57% enjoyed the life with their family due to lockdown, and when asked about their social life with the family and friends, majority of the participants (66.34%) had an opinion that it has improved due to the increased free time. Conclusions: Most of the respondents reported perceived economic, psychosocial, and social impacts due to the pandemic.
Introduction: Gender-based preferences are common in dental practice and maybe even more prevalent in academic dentistry. A large number of females have been entering the practice of general dentistry for the past two decades. The present study was done to assess dental students' perception of gender preferences in dentistry using a questionnaire in Saudi Arabia. Materials and Methods: A survey was conducted using a pretested questionnaire among dental interns pursuing their internship at different dental schools in Saudi Arabia. The questionnaires were distributed to 482 interns who were willing to participate in the survey. All the responses were collected, tabulated, and analyzed accordingly using appropriate statistical methods. Results: Four hundred and eighty-two dental interns (180 males and 302 females) responded to the survey. Most female interns (68%) prefer female patients for their treatments to the opposite gender. Seventy-five percent of the male interns felt more capable than females to handle stress and workload associated with branches such as prosthodontics, surgery, and implantology. 52.1% felt that female students fared well in academics. Conclusion: The present study shows that more females are taking up this profession in the current situation. It also shows that females are as competitive as males in dentistry and that most of the dental interns want to take up postgraduation after completion of the course. Both males and females are given equal working space and respect in this field of dentistry.
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