
Knowledge, Attitude and Practices on COVID-19 among Patients Attending a Private Dental College in Jeddah
Correspondence Address :Shanthi Vanka,
IBN Sina National College, AL Safa Dist AL Mahjar St, Jeddah, Makkah, Saudi Arabia.
E-mail: shanthiamit@rediffmail.com
Introduction: The close proximity to the patient's oropharyngeal region and also involved aerosol production presents a potential high risk for the transmission of disease across patients and dental health practitioners. This requires dentists and patients to be aware of the risks of contracting coronavirus from the patient's perspective when they seek dental treatment.
Aim: To assess the knowledge, attitude and practices of the patients toward the dental visits during the pandemic crisis.
Materials and Methods: The present study was a cross-sectional questionnaire-based study conducted in IBN Sina National College, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia from 6th July, 2020 to 24th July 2020. All the patients who had visited the dental clinics attached to the dental college were sent online google docs form with a consent through WhatsApp. Questions were divided into 2 sections, one section related to demographic data of participants like age, gender, education level, frequency of dental visits and the other section related to patients’ perspective with regards to the coronavirus infection in the dental set up. The results were analysed using SPSS version 23.
Results: The questionnaire was sent to all the patients online and all of them had responded to the survey. Majority of the patients {1757 (80.9%)} have knowledge about the COVID-19 disease signs, symptoms, transmission and complications. Among these respondents 6.6% (144) had routinely visited a dentist, 8.8% (192) had sometimes visited a dentist and only 0.3% (7) visited a dentist only once and they generally try to avoid visiting a dentist.
Conclusion: At a clinical level, education is limited only to the patients who approach the dentists. At a community level, government, dental colleges and dentists have to take several measures in educating the public in equipping them with health promotional materials. Community-based online programs should be planned and implemented by different levels of administration.
Coronavirus-19 pandemic, Descriptive study, Education of patients, Patient care, Patient education, Promotion of health
DOI: 10.7860/JCDR/2020/46127.14356
Date of Submission: Jul 28, 2020
Date of Peer Review: Sep 18, 2020
Date of Acceptance: Oct 10, 2020
Date of Publishing: Dec 15, 2020
AUTHOR DECLARATION:
• Financial or Other Competing Interests: None
• Was Ethics Committee Approval obtained for this study? Yes
• Was informed consent obtained from the subjects involved in the study? Yes
• For any images presented appropriate consent has been obtained from the subjects. Yes
PLAGIARISM CHECKING METHODS:
• Plagiarism X-checker: Aug 01, 2020
• Manual Googling: Sep 17, 2020
• iThenticate Software: Dec 11, 2020 (9%)
ETYMOLOGY: Author Origin
- Emerging Sources Citation Index (Web of Science, thomsonreuters)
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- HINARI Access to Research in Health Programme
- Indian Science Abstracts (ISA)
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- www.omnimedicalsearch.com