Knowledge of dental academics about the COVID-19 pandemic: a multi-country online survey
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
Knowledge of dental academics about the COVID-19 pandemic: a multi-country online survey Nour Ammar1* , Nourhan M. Aly1, Morenike O. Folayan2, Simin Z. Mohebbi3,4, Sameh Attia5, Hans-Peter Howaldt5, Sebastian Boettger5, Yousef Khader6, Diah A. Maharani7, Anton Rahardjo7, Imran Khan8 , Marwa Madi9, Anas Shamala10 , Ola B. Al-Batayneh11, Maher Rashwan12,13, Verica Pavlic14, Smiljka Cicmil15, Gabriella Galluccio16, Antonella Polimeni16, Davide Mancino17,18, Arheiam Arheiam19, Mai A. Dama20, Myat Nyan21, Prathip Phantumvanit22, Jin-Bom Kim23, Youn-Hee Choi24, Jorge L. Castillo25, Easter Joury26, Maha M. Abdelsalam27, Mohammad M. Alkeshan28, Iyad Hussein29 , Ana P. Vukovic30, Alfredo Iandolo31, Arthur M. Kemoli32 and Maha El Tantawi1
Abstract 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 26 countries. Methods: We invited dental academics to participate in a cross-sectional, multi-country, online survey from March to April 2020. The survey collected data on knowledge of COVID-19 regarding the mode of transmission, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, protection, and dental treatment precautions as well as participants’ background variables. Multilevel linear models were used to assess the association between dental academics’ knowledge of COVID-19 and individual level (personal and professional) and country-level (number of COVID-19 cases/ million population) factors accounting for random variation among countries. Results: Two thousand forty-five academics 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 score of knowledge of symptoms was significantly lower than the score of knowledge of diagnostic methods (53.1 and 85.4%, P < 0.0001). Knowledge score was significantly higher among those living with a partner/spouse than among those living alone (regression coefficient (B) = 0.48); higher among those with PhD degrees than among those with Bachelor of Dental Science degrees (B = 0.48); higher among those seeing 21 to 30 patients daily than among those seeing no patients (B = 0.65); and higher among 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 of COVID-19 diagnostic methods. Living arrangements, academic degrees, patient load, and magnitude of the epidemic in the country were associated with COVD-19 knowledge among dental academics. Training of dental academics on COVID-19 can be designed using these findings to recruit those with the greatest need. Keywords: Dental faculty, COVID-19, Epidemics, Surveys and questionnaires, Multilevel analysis
* Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Department of Pediatric Dentistry and Dental Public Health, Faculty of Dentistry, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt Full list of author inf
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