9. Knowledge and Attitude of Pakistani Dentists Regarding Covid-19
Asma Munir Khan1, Arham Riaz4, Shazia Nawabi2, Muhammad Qasim Javed1, Khurram Shahzad3 and Farzana Kulsoom5
ABSTRACT
Objective: The objective of the study was to examine the knowledge, and attitude of Pakistani dentists, regarding novel COVID-19 disease.
Study Design: Descriptive, Cross sectional study.
Place and Duration of Study: This study was conducted at the Department of Conservative Dental Sciences and Endodontics, College of Dentistry, Qassim University, Al-Qassim, Saudi Arabia and Department of Oral Pathology, Frontier Medical and Dental College Abbottabad from 15th to 31st March, 2020 in Pakistan.
Materials and Methods: A self-designed e-questionnaire was administered through e-mail to 500 dentists. SPSS version 23 was used to analysis data. Descriptive statistics were presented as frequency and percentages. The association between the dependent and independent variables was determined by utilizing Chi-square test and the level of significance was set at p value <0.05. Moreover, the inferential statistics (Mann Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis tests, p-value<0.05) were used for determining the significance among study variables. The correlation between the attitude and knowledge scores was assessed by utilizing Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient.
Results: A total of 306 dentists responded. Participants’ mean knowledge score was 10.69± 2.14, with 91.5 % participants having sufficient knowledge. 242 (79.1%) respondents showed positive attitude (>4) towards COVID-19. The mean attitude score was 4.28±0.61. The results of current study showed a significant correlation of knowledge with both designation (p-value=0.002) and gender (p-value=0.04).
Conclusion: Pakistani dentists have exhibited adequate awareness about general symptoms, transmission mode, cross-infection control and dental practice management in perspective of the COVID-19 outbreak. However, their understanding to protect dental professionals from this highly contagious disease during specialized dental procedures was unsatisfactory.
Key Words: COVID-19, Attitude, practice management, cross-infection control.
Citation of article: Khan AM, Riaz A, Nawabi S, Javed MQ, Shahzad K, Kulsoom F. Knowledge and Attitude of Pakistani Dentists Regarding Covid-19. Med Forum 2020;31(9):34-40.