Attitude of the Dental Undergraduate Students and Interns towards Dentistry Post COVID-19

Abstract

Introduction The period of coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) is a significant period from various aspects such as world health and socioeconomic considerations. The majority of the hospitals involved in dental education had previously limited their clinical practices to dental emergencies, but now are geared up for nonemergent conditions. As teaching modalities shifted to online platforms, students have reported to be anxious with regard to accomplishment of required clinical skills, patient care, and forthcoming graduation. Fresh graduates have reported a delay in the drive, which they would have been able to achieve in the initial stages of their profession.

Objectives To assess the attitude of the dental undergraduate students and interns toward dentistry post-COVID-19.

Results The majority (80.2%) were prepared for the challenges lying ahead before beginning to work on patients. Also, 16% were willing to treat patients, 28% did not want to treat patients, while 44% were willing to handle emergency cases. Next, 67.8% were scared of infecting themselves while administering dental treatment and 78.9% were concerned that there could be more such pandemics. In total, 21.6% of the respondents who wished that they chose an alternate profession whereas 70.5% of participants felt that the scope of dentistry has not diminished. Also, 90.7% were interested to pursue postgraduation, and 86.3% felt that this was a passing phase and things would be normalized soon.

Conclusion With second and third waves being rampant, novel coronavirus has become a public health crisis. Because dental services cannot be stopped for a long time, it is essential for dental students to be well trained to limit the spread of the disease. Owing to the present scenario, appropriate donning and doffing of PPE (personal protective equipment) is a pivotal step in direct patient care, and simulation-based training may help ensure that these skills are acquired by them.

Keywords

attitude - COVID-19 - dentistry - students

Ethics Clearance

Ethics clearance was obtained from the Institutional Ethics Committee (Cert.No. ABSM/EC.43/2020).

Presentation

This paper was presented at the AIMST International Dental e-conference, AIDEC 2021 on June 27, 2021.

Publication History

Article published online:
28 November 2022

• References

• 1 Bizzoca ME, Campisi G, Muzio LL. Covid-19 pandemic: what changes for dentists and oral medicine experts? A narrative review and novel approaches to infection containment. Int J Environ Res Public Health 2020; 17 (11) 3793
• 2 Madiyal M, Bhat S, Babu SG, Achalli S. Impact of Covid-19 on dental education. J Health Allied Sci 2021; 11: 57-60
• 3 Lzahrani SB, Alrusayes AA, Aldossary MS. Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on dental education, research, and students. Int J Health Sci Res 2020; 10 (06) 207-212
• 4 Almulhim B, Alassaf A, Alghamdi S. et al. Dentistry amidst the COVID-19 pandemic: knowledge, attitude, and practices among the Saudi Arabian dental students. Front Med (Lausanne) 2021; 8: 654524
• 5 Alawiam R, Riad A, Kateeb B. Knowledge and attitudes among dental students about COVID-19 and its precautionary measures: a cross-sectional study. J Oral Med Oral Surg 2021; 27: 17
• 6 Chen E, Jiang J, Chang HH, Muric G, Ferrara E. Charting the information and misinformation landscape to characterize misinfodemics on social media: COVID-19 infodemiology study at a planetary scale. JMIR Infodemiology 2022; 2 (01) e32378
• 7 Zarocostas J. How to fight an infodemic. Lancet 2020; 395 (10225): 676
• 8 Al-Amad SH, Hussein A. Anxiety among dental professionals and its association with their dependency on social media for health information: insights from the COVID-19 pandemic. BMC Psychol 2021; 9 (01) 9
• 9 Guo H, Zhou Y, Liu X, Tan J. The impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the utilization of emergency dental services. J Dent Sci 2020; 15 (04) 564-567