ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic forced governments to implement strategies for contact tracing due to the disease's ease of spread. The Malaysian government has sought to develop and implement a digital contact-tracking application to make it easier and faster to detect the spread;the system has become an integral part of the exit strategy from mandated lockdowns. These applications keep track of the user's proximity with others who are in the system to inform them early on if they are at a risk of infection. The effectiveness of these applications depends on the willingness of users to install and allow the application to track their location at all times. Therefore, this research aims to identify the factors that would stimulate or slow down the adoption of contact-tracing apps. © 2023 by the authors.
ABSTRACT
Objective: To assess the knowledge, awareness and attitude of covid-19 among Pakistani dental students. Design of the Study: It’s a cross-sectional study. Study Settings: This study was carried out at HBS Dental College, Islamabad & Rawal Institute of Health Sciences (RIHS), Islamabad from August 2020 to January 2021. Material and Methods: For collection of data, a validated close-ended questionnaire was used. Response of dental students was taken using an electronic based questionnaire distributed through E-mails, Whatsap and Google forms. A total of 305 dental students completed the questionnaire. The questionnaire contained of three demographic features, 21 questions about knowledge, seven items about attitudes, and seven items about preventive measures, adapted from an earlier published questionnaire about corona virus. Convenience sampling technique was applied for collection of data and a response of respondents was presented as %. Data was entered and analyzed using SPSS V-23 taking value of p<0.05 as significant. Results of the Study: Present study included a total of 305 participants out of which 120 dental students (39.34%) were males and 185 (60.65%) were females. The majority of the participants i.e., 160 of them belonged to the age group of 17-24 years (52.40%). Almost 60.65% respondents correctly answered about statement of incubation period “2-14 days”, and 83.60% replied that COVID-19 might be present without symptoms. Out of 305 students 97.70% have replied that frequent washing of hands with soap or alcohol mixed hand sanitizer are satisfactory methods to avoid transmission of Corona virus. Conclusion: In this study dental students are satisfactorily aware from the pandemic and its promising consequences. However in this study fear of transferring the COVID-19 infection to their families and friends was a significant concern. Majority of the dental students looked to have adequate awareness about corona virus and precautionary steps taken to avoid from COVID-19 transmission for both patients and dental students.