Comparison of COVID-19 relevant knowledge and attitudes of clinical and preclinical dental students in Turkey

Abstract

SummaryBackground/Aim: Dental care settings invariably carry the risk of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection because dental practice involves face-to-face communication with patients and the generation of large amounts of aerosol and droplets mixed with patients’ saliva. Since droplet and aerosol transmission are the most important concerns in dental clinics, informing future dentists about pandemic diseases at the undergraduate stage is important. In this context, the aim of this study was to compare the knowledge and attitudes of clinical and preclinical dental students regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.Material and Methods: 159 preclinical and 130 clinical dental students were included in this cross sectional study. The researchers developed a closed-ended questionnaire with the help of the existing literature. The questionnaire contained 17 questions about the knowledge and attitudes of dental students regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.Results: Clinical students feel significantly more threatened with exposure to COVID-19 infection than preclinical students (p<0.05, chi-square test). The proportion of students who do not want to treat an individual who has had a COVID-19 infection and recovered is statistically higher in clinical students (p<0.05, chi-square test). The proportion of students who think that using protective equipment during dental practice will not protect them against COVID-19 infection is statistically higher in clinical students (p<0.05, chi-square test).Conclusions: More education and training courses are need in order to improve students’ knowledge and attitudes regarding newly emerging pandemic diseases.

Knowledge, Protective Behaviors and Risk Perception of COVID-19 among Dental Students in India: A Cross-Sectional Analysis

“…The knowledge scores of females were lower than the males, and this finding was inconsistent with the other studies [37,42]. Our study found a higher score among postgraduate students than undergraduates, because clinical students rely more on science-based resources, such as the Ministry of Health rather than social media [43]. There were significant differences found in the COVID-19 knowledge and protective behaviors among clinical and preclinical students, and the results were consistent other studies that were conducted in Turkey, China, Saudi Arabia, Italy, and Nigeria [18,30,[43][44][45][46].…”

“…Our study found a higher score among postgraduate students than undergraduates, because clinical students rely more on science-based resources, such as the Ministry of Health rather than social media [ 43 ]. There were significant differences found in the COVID-19 knowledge and protective behaviors among clinical and preclinical students, and the results were consistent other studies that were conducted in Turkey, China, Saudi Arabia, Italy, and Nigeria [ 18 , 30 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 ]. The lower knowledge scores among undergraduate students highlight the need to refine the current dental curriculum, including infectious diseases epidemiology and control practices.…”

Nivel de conocimiento sobre COVID-19 en estudiantes de la Universidad Nacional de Chimborazo. Ecuador

“…Sin embrago, un estudio realizado por Labban et al (2020) discrepó con nuestra investigación y las anteriores, ya que el nivel de conocimiento es más alto en los hombres (91%) que las mujeres (87%). La mayoría de resultados…”

“…Los datos resultantes de esta investigacion concuerdan con dos estudios; el primero desarrollado por Labban et al (2020) demostró que las personas con profesiones médicas tuvieron el 98% de respuestas correctas mientras que ajenos a las ciencias de la salud como Ciencias (87%), Economía (69%), Derecho (64%) e Ingeniería (61%) alcanzaron un puntaje menor (p< 0.05 ); así mismo un segundo estudio presentando por Peng et al (2020) evidenció que existió un mayor nivel de conocimiento en los estudiantes pertenecientes a programas médicos (83,48%) en relación a los no médicos (81,22%) (p=0.025).…”

“…En cuanto a la preparación profesional se identificó que quienes tienen mayor nivel de conocimiento sobre COVID-19 son aquellos que cursan grados superiores de formación, observandose una correlación positiva escasa entre el semestre y el nivel de conocimiento (p=0,012), resultado similar a los estudios de Kamate et al (2020)(p=0,04), Jha et al (2020) (p=0,033), Zegarra (2020) (p=0,031) y (Clements, 2020) (p=0.09) en los cuales también se demostró que existió un mayor nivel de conocimiento a medida que aumentaron en relación con los años de practica y estudio. Por otro lado, la investigación realizada por Karaaslan (2020) no encontró diferencia significativa entre sus grupos de estudio en cuanto al nivel de conocimiento y los años de formación.…”