Bhatnagar Swati, Rao B Shushma, Srivastava Rahul, Gopalakrishnan Niharicka, Shenoy Ramya, Mascarenhas Roma
Manipal College of Dental Sciences Mangalore, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, 576014, Karnataka, India.
Department of Public Health Dentistry, Manipal College of Dental Sciences Mangalore, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, 576014, Karnataka, India.
BMC Res Notes. 2025 Jul 31;18(1):342. doi: 10.1186/s13104-025-07367-0.
The cross-infection created between dental staff and patients by COVID-19 had no established protocols for the dental problems caused by the pandemic. Hence, the dentists' knowledge regarding the oral symptoms of COVID-19 were assessed.
This study reviewed the knowledge regarding oral manifestations of COVID-19 among dentists and the effect of waves 1 and 2 on dental community.
In phase I, a cross-sectional survey with standardised and validated questionnaire was distributed among dentists using social media. In phase II, a qualitative in-depth interview of 8 dental clinicians (samples due to data saturation) was done to investigate the effects waves 1 and 2 on dentistry. Descriptive data was analysed via chi-square tests and Phase II analysis was carried out via Atlas-Ti software.
About 84.4% dental surgeons, 15 (3.7%) BDS, 48 (11.9%) MDS aspirants had good knowledge about the basic details and the oral manifestations of COVID-19, and the results were statistically significant with the participants' knowledge about COVID-19 (p = 0.001), oral manifestations (p = 0), recommended personal prevention (p = 0.01), the necessity of RT‒PCR (p = 0) and disease fatality (p = 0.015). In phase II, four themes were formed from interviews: Source of 1st information, Outlook towards COVID-19, Impact and Self-retrospection.
This study highlights the knowledge assessment among dental clinicians on the requirement of educational training programs about infection control practices to be followed in dentistry. The in-depth interviews of the dental clinicians revealed the need for strict infection control protocols following the pandemic.
新型冠状病毒肺炎（COVID-19）在牙科工作人员和患者之间造成的交叉感染，对于该大流行引发的牙科问题尚无既定方案。因此，对牙医关于COVID-19口腔症状的知识进行了评估。
本研究回顾了牙医对COVID-19口腔表现的认识以及第一波和第二波疫情对牙科领域的影响。
在第一阶段，通过社交媒体向牙医发放一份经过标准化和验证的问卷进行横断面调查。在第二阶段，对8名牙科临床医生（因数据饱和而选取的样本）进行了定性深入访谈，以调查第一波和第二波疫情对牙科的影响。描述性数据通过卡方检验进行分析，第二阶段的分析通过阿特拉斯钛软件进行。
约84.4%的牙科外科医生、15名（3.7%）牙科学士、48名（11.9%）口腔医学硕士 aspirants对COVID-19的基本细节和口腔表现有良好的了解，结果与参与者对COVID-19的了解（p = 0.001）、口腔表现（p = 0）、推荐的个人预防措施（p = 0.01）、逆转录聚合酶链反应（RT-PCR）的必要性（p = 0）和疾病死亡率（p = 0.015）具有统计学意义。在第二阶段，访谈形成了四个主题：第一手信息来源、对COVID-19的看法、影响和自我反思。
本研究强调了对牙科临床医生进行知识评估，以了解牙科领域应遵循的感染控制实践教育培训计划的必要性。对牙科临床医生的深入访谈揭示了疫情后需要严格的感染控制方案。
