Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Italy: knowledge, management of patients and clinical experience of Italian dentists during the spread of contagion

Abstract

Background: The coronavirus infection that emerged in China in the last few months of 2019 has now spread globally. Italy registered its first case in the second half of February, and in a short time period, it became the top country in Europe in terms of the number of infected people and the first in the world in terms of deaths. The medical and scientific community has been called upon to manage the emergency and to take measures. Dentists also need to take new precautions during their clinical activity to protect themselves, coworkers and patients from the risks of contagion and to avoid further spread of infection.Methods: Following the data published in the international literature as well as the guidelines and directives constantly updated by the WHO and by the national health authorities, a questionnaire to be completed anonymously was submitted online to Italian dentists using social tools and online professional platforms. The collected data were processed statistically, providing descriptive data and analysis of correlations of the most significant parameters using the Pearson’s χ2, the Likelihood-Ratio χ2, Cramér’s V, Fisher’s exact test, Goodman and Kruskal’s γ, and Kendall’s τb (p<0.05).Results: A total of 535 dentists from Italy participated in the survey. A good level of scientific knowledge about coronavirus and the extra precautionary measures needed to limit the spread was related to the age of respondents and their sex. Coming from areas with higher concentrations of cases affected knowledge, level of attention and perception of risk related to dental activity.Conclusions: At the moment, there are no therapies or vaccines to contain the infection with the new coronavirus that is causing many infections, many of which are fatal, worldwide. Dentists are one of the categories at highest risk of encountering diseases and infections because they work in close proximity with patients, and in their procedures, there is always contact with aerosols with high bacterial and viral potential. Therefore, during this COVID-19 emergency, it is important that dentists are properly informed and take the appropriate precautionary measures.

Awareness, knowledge and trust in the Greek authorities towards COVID-19 pandemic: results from the Epirus Health Study cohort

“…Literature evidence on the knowledge and attitudes of the Greek population towards the COVID-19 pandemic is limited. In a sample of 461 health care professionals working in five public hospitals in the central region of Thessaly, Greece recruited inFebruary, 2020, 96% recognized that droplets is the main mode of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, whereas 20% and 53% considered sex and food consumption, respectively, as possible modes of transmission(22).Our findings are compatible with several studies conducted in various countries worldwide, in which participants showed good knowledge for the transmission routes and the possible risk of infection imposed by asymptomatic people(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30). However, most studies recruited targeted populations, including health care personnel, students and hospital visitors; thus, the generalization of their findings to the general public was questionable.When we further investigated the association between participants' level of knowledge and a variety of clinical parameters, medical history, demographic and lifestyle factors, positive associations emerged at the nominal statistical significance level between participants' level of knowledge and trust in the Greek health authorities for managing the spread of the virus and the hours of paid work per week.…”

The relationship between air pollution and COVID-19-related deaths: An application to three French cities

“…Since it clearly appears that there are remarkable differences in terms of the rate of COVID-19 spread in the world, it would be relevant to assess the potential influence of atmospheric pollution as a contributing factor to COVID-19 mortality [28] . As a response, a few seminal studies have been recently conducted on various cases with multiple pollutants types Wu et al [29] on the USA; Yongjian et al [30] on China; Travaglio et al [31] on England; Setti et al [32] on Italy; Conticini et al [33] ) and Putrino et al [34] on Italy). These empirical investigations confirmed the existence of a significant association between air pollution and COVID-19 cases or mortality, making poor air quality an additional co-factor of COVID-19 lethality.…”

Awareness, Attitudes, and Infection Control Measures of Dentists in Turkey Regarding COVID-19 Pandemic

“…According to the results of this study, the use of protective equipment and the disinfection of hands were observed over 85% in all experience years groups. However, Putrino et al [41] stated that the aforementioned control measures were applied by almost 26% of the participants in Italy during the COVID-19 process.…”