Previously submitted to: JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (no longer under consideration since Apr 05, 2021)
Date Submitted: Jul 30, 2020
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Knowledge, Attitude and Preparations Toward COVID-19 Among Dentists in Saudi Arabia: An Online Survey
ABSTRACT
Background:
Dental professionals are one of the high-risk categories of getting infected with COVID-19 due to their work nature. The study was aimed to evaluate the knowledge, attitude, and practices (KAPs) related to COVID-19 and their clinical practice in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Objective:
1-To evaluate the level of knowledge and attitude regarding the coronavirus diseases (COVID-19) among dentists in Saudi Arabia . 2-To evaluate the certainty level of dental practitioner in continuing dental practice and the preparedness in screening and dealing of COVID-19 patients .
Methods:
A cross-sectional online survey was conducted using a pre-tested and validated questionnaire. The questionnaire was comprised of closed-ended items related to KAPs. Participants' correct responses were scored and based on the total scores obtained, each domain was categorized into ‘good’, ‘fair’, and ‘poor’. Relationship with Sociodemographic details and KAP scores were analyzed using Pearson’s Chi-square test.
Results:
Most of the participants showed good scores in KAPs related to COVID-19. Saudi Dentists had comparatively better KAP scores compared to Non-Saudi dentists (p<0.001). Male dentists and specialist dentists had comparatively better knowledge scores than female and general dentists respectively (p<0.001). Dentists who had experience for less than 5 years demonstrated lesser knowledge and practice scores than others (p<0.05).
Conclusions:
Dentists practice in Saudi Arabia had good knowledge, attitude, and practices towards COVID-19 and its importance in dentistry. Dentists should mandatorily follow all the guidelines and extra precautionary measures to stop the spread of this pandemic.
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