TY - JOUR
T1 - Knowledge of dental academics about the COVID-19 pandemic
T2 - a multi-country online survey
AU - Ammar, Nour
AU - Aly, Nourhan M.
AU - Folayan, Morenike O.
AU - Mohebbi, Simin Z.
AU - Attia, Sameh
AU - Howaldt, Hans Peter
AU - Boettger, Sebastian
AU - Khader, Yousef
AU - Maharani, Diah A.
AU - Rahardjo, Anton
AU - Khan, Imran
AU - Madi, Marwa
AU - Shamala, Anas
AU - Al-Batayneh, Ola B.
AU - Rashwan, Maher
AU - Pavlic, Verica
AU - Cicmil, Smiljka
AU - Galluccio, Gabriella
AU - Polimeni, Antonella
AU - Mancino, Davide
AU - Arheiam, Arheiam
AU - Dama, Mai A.
AU - Nyan, Myat
AU - Phantumvanit, Prathip
AU - Kim, Jin Bom
AU - Choi, Youn Hee
AU - Castillo, Jorge L.
AU - Joury, Easter
AU - Abdelsalam, Maha M.
AU - Alkeshan, Mohammad M.
AU - Hussein, Iyad
AU - Vukovic, Ana P.
AU - Iandolo, Alfredo
AU - Kemoli, Arthur M.
AU - El Tantawi, Maha
N1 - Funding Information:
We are grateful to all the academics who kindly responded to the survey and answered our questions in these difficult times.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The Author(s).
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/12/1
Y1 - 2020/12/1
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - COVID-19
KW - Dental faculty
KW - Epidemics
KW - Multilevel analysis
KW - Surveys and questionnaires
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85094872281&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1186/s12909-020-02308-w
DO - 10.1186/s12909-020-02308-w
M3 - Article
C2 - 33138810
AN - SCOPUS:85094872281
SN - 1472-6920
VL - 20
JO - BMC Medical Education
JF - BMC Medical Education
IS - 1
M1 - 399
ER -