Perceptions and Expectations of Academic Staff in Bucharest towards the COVID-19 Pandemic Impact on Dental Education

Abstract

Dental education was severely challenged by the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. The evaluation of the viewpoint of the dental teachers of the Faculty of Dentistry at “Carol Davila” University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest, Romania, on these exceptional circumstances’ consequences was the objective of this paper. A cross-sectional study was conducted in April 2022, on the academic staff who reported their perceptions of the emotional and educational impact of the pandemic by completing a Google Forms questionnaire. Although a significant emotional impact of the pandemic was reported by over a third of the participants (31.2%), most of them being teachers of fifth-year dental students (p = 0.019), the perceived stress had an impact on the teaching performance in few of them (14%), the quality of sleep remaining unaffected in most of them (53.7%), whereas the level of anxiety was low (57%). An educational impact regarding the techno difficulties during the online transition was mentioned by few respondents (16.1%), with male teaching staff facing the fewest problems (p = 0.024), as well as low levels of difficulties in transmitting academic information (11.9), with men also being the most unaffected (p = 0.006). More than half of the participants (59.1%) rather see digital and/or virtual education during the pandemic as having adverse effects on the educational system, the most sceptical being teachers of the fifth (p = 0.001) and sixth years (p = 0.001). The COVID-19 pandemic affected the academic staff of the Faculty of Dentistry at “Carol Davila” University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest, Romania, not only at a personal level but also at a professional, pedagogical one, due to the introduction of the online teaching system followed by the hybrid one. Age group, gender, and teaching year differentiated the degree of emotional and educational impairment.

COVID-19 and flu vaccination in Romania, post pandemic lessons in healthcare workers and general population

“…Healthcare workers from various domains, neonatology, oncology, and especially the ones from the dentistry, are at great risk for flu and COVID-19 exposure, as they may be a source of flurona spread, as studies had revealed [61][62][63][64]. Vaccination may have side effects [65,66] that cause further burden for people, especially healthcare workers.…”

Aspects Regarding Sustainability among Private Dental Practitioners from Bucharest, Romania: A Pilot Study

“…The COVID-19 pandemic had a negative impact on sustainability in dentistry, health professionals considerably increasing their usage of PPE materials, as a result of the pandemic, in order to lower the risk of infections [62]. On the other hand, it was demonstrated that dental staff, academic personnel, dental students and dental researchers were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic on multiple levels (such as economic, financial, social and emotional status) [63][64][65][66][67][68].…”