Abbas Beenish, Wajahat Mehreen, Saleem Zakia, Imran Eisha, Sajjad Mehvish, Khurshid Zohaib
Department of Pediatric Dentistry, Foundation University, College of Dentistry, Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
Department of Dental Materials, Avicenna Dental College, Lahore, Pakistan.
Eur J Dent. 2020 Dec;14(S 01):S116-S122. doi: 10.1055/s-0040-1722107. Epub 2020 Dec 31.
To assess knowledge, awareness, and practice of health care workers about the role of teledentistry in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
A prevalidated structured questionnaire was used to evaluate awareness of general dentists, postgraduate dental students, dental educators, and consultants with postgraduation degrees toward teledentistry. The acceptability, reliability, and language clarity were also pretested. A total of 510 dental professionals contributed to this study.
A statistical analysis using SPSS (version 20.0) was performed. Responses were noted as yes or no. A -value of ≤ 0.05 was considered to be significant. Frequencies described data. Chi-square test was performed for intergroup comparison to evaluate if the knowledge and attitude diverge with the increase in the level of seniority in the profession.
Awareness regarding teledentistry is high among general dentists with bachelor of dental surgery qualification in comparison to final-year students and postgraduate dental students. The majority of participants agreed with improvement in health care (88.20%), access to rural areas (82.90%), and general practicing dentist agreed with statistically significant difference (0.00) on saving time by teledentistry.
General practicing dentist was observed with high awareness of teledentistry as compared with postgraduate and undergraduate dental students.
评估医护人员对远程牙科在2019冠状病毒病（COVID-19）中作用的知识、认识和实践情况。
使用一份经过预验证的结构化问卷来评估普通牙医、牙科研究生、牙科教育工作者以及具有研究生学位的顾问对远程牙科的认识。还对问卷的可接受性、可靠性和语言清晰度进行了预测试。共有510名牙科专业人员参与了本研究。
使用SPSS（版本20.0）进行统计分析。回答记录为是或否。P值≤0.05被认为具有统计学意义。频率用于描述数据。进行卡方检验以进行组间比较，评估知识和态度是否随着专业资历水平的提高而有所不同。
与最后一年的学生和牙科研究生相比，具有牙科学士学位的普通牙医对远程牙科的认识较高。大多数参与者认同远程牙科在改善医疗保健（88.20%）、进入农村地区（82.90%）方面的作用，并且普通执业牙医认同远程牙科在节省时间方面具有统计学显著差异（0.00）。
与牙科研究生和本科生相比，观察到普通执业牙医对远程牙科的认识较高。
