Knowledge of Dental Academics about the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Multi-Country Online Survey
[post]
Nour Ammar, Nourhan M. Aly, Morenike O. Folayan, Simin Z. Mohebbi, Sameh Attia, Hans-Peter Howaldt, Sebastian Boettger, Yousef Khader, Diah A. Maharani, Anton Rahardjo, Imran Khan, Marwa Madi
(+23 others)
2020
unpublished
Background COVID-19 is a global pandemic affecting all aspects of life in all countries. We assessed COVID-19 knowledge and associated factors among dental academics in various countries. Method We invited dental academics to participate in a cross-sectional, multi-country, online survey from March to April 2020. The survey assessed knowledge of COVID-19 regarding the mode of transmission, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, protection, and dental treatment precautions as well as participants'
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... round variables. The analysis was based on multilevel linear models to assess the association between knowledge and factors at individual levels (personal and professional) and country-level (number of COVID-19 cases/ million population), accounting for random variation among countries. Results Two thousand forty-five academics from 26 countries participated in the survey (response rate= 14.3%, with 54.7% female and 67% younger than 46 years of age). The mean (SD) knowledge percent score was 73.2% (11.2), and the knowledge of symptoms score was significantly lower than the diagnostic methods score (53.1% and 85.4%). Knowledge was significantly higher among those living with partner/spouse than those living alone (regression coefficient (B)= 0.48); those with PhD than those with BDS (B= 0.48), those seeing 21 to 30 patients daily than those seeing no patients (B= 0.65) and those from countries with a higher number of COVID-19 cases/million population (B= 0.0007). Conclusions Dental academics had poorer knowledge of COVID-19 symptoms than diagnostic methods. Living arrangements, academic degrees, patient load, and magnitude of epidemic in the country were associated with COVD-19 knowledge among dental academics. COVID-19 training can be designed using these factors to target academics with the greatest need.
doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-42349/v2
fatcat:5cojmg5oezh7vm7ad3n6csbdi4
