Effect of work environment and specialty degree of dentists on cross-infection control in COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Introduction Performing dental procedures during the COVID-19 pandemic carries certain risks in terms of cross contamination. Objectives To evaluate the effect of specialty education and work environment on of dentists’ behavior, awareness and attitude regarding cross-infection control in COVID-19 pandemic. Design The study population consisted of Turkish dentists who work in private clinics, public clinics and university hospitals. Demographics of the participants, awareness of COVID-19 and clinical measures taken against cross-infection were evaluated with an online survey. Between 10th-20th of November 2020, 1,000 surveys were e-mailed to the dentists. Results A total 454 dentists answered the survey; 29.3% of the participants deliver only urgent care, 59.9% both urgent and routine treatments and personal protective equipment (PPE) were used at rates varying between 75.5% and 98.4%. 90.6% of the dentists stated that they were worried about aerosol generating dental procedures and there was no difference between sexes in this regard (p=0.119). The majority of participants, mainly specialists (p=0.16), applied strict cross-infection control methods during the COVID-19 pandemic (77.2%). The rate of PPE use was statistically higher by women compared to men (p=0.025) and by specialists compared to others (p=0.04). There was a weak positive correlation between level of PPE use and expertise (r=0.121, p=0.01). Conclusions Although participants' knowledge about the symptoms of COVID-19, transmission routes and following the guidelines were at a sufficient level, dental specialists apply protection equipment procedures more strictly. Although participants were concerned about dental practices that create microbial aerosols during the pandemic period, still they continue their dental routines using high levels of PPE and taking extra clinical precautions to avoid cross-infection.

Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Oral Health Workforce: A Multicenter Study from the Southern Region of Brazil

“…Such results corroborate what was found in Germany where the main difficulties for this were insufficient knowledge, guidelines and recommendations, as well as the availability of equipment and high costs of PPE [54]. In Turkey, for instance, 90.6% of participants were concerned about aerosol-generating procedures; however, only 53.3% suspended these procedures [55].…”

“…Oral health workers are engaged in the prevention and control of COVID-19 and need to be guaranteed access to reliable information [56]. High levels of knowledge, awareness and appropriate professional practices have been observed in other studies [13,55,[57][58][59]. During the first wave in Turkey, 58.1% of oral health workers reported receiving training at their workplaces [57], while in Brazil, about 83% of dentists reported not having received specific training to control coronavirus transmission in the workplace [35].…”

Awareness of the Protective Measures Against Covid-19 among Turkish Dentists: A Questionnaire Survey

“…Compared with the results of a study conducted in Turkey (27), dentists' working rates increased slightly, and there was no change in the rate of patient admissions for dentists with less than 15 years of experience. Mutluay et al (33) found that dentists' working rates were higher in their study conducted in November 2020.…”

Analyzing the psychological effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Turkish dental professionals

“…3.5 times greater as compared to the 1-year period after the COVID-19 pandemic. 11 The majority of dental professionals (80%) provided only emergency treatment, 10 while 5.1-16.9% postponed all dental procedures 10,12 and 13.8% closed their dental clinics. 10 During the pandemic, patients would go to the dentist in case of dental emergency, mostly because of pain (36.6%) and a fractured tooth (36.1%).…”