Perceptions and attitudes of dental practitioners towards impacts of Covid 19 pandemic on clinical dentistry: a cross-sectional study.
BMC Oral Health
; 22(1): 424, 2022 09 22.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-2038721
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
The COVID-19 pandemic challenged all healthcare providers including dental practitioners. This cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the dental practitioners' perceptions and attitudes towards the impacts of COVID-19 on their professional practice, career decision and patient care.METHODS:
Data was collected from dental practitioners registered in New South Wales (NSW), Australia using an online survey. RESULTS ANDCONCLUSION:
Responses received from 206 dental practitioners revealed their perceptions and attitudes towards COVID-19 infection risk, clinical guidelines, and measures adopted to deliver patient care. Majority of participants perceived the risk of infection in dentistry was higher compared with other health professionals. Most dental practices have followed guidelines received from professional associations and adopted multiple measures such as providing hand sanitizer, social distancing, and risk screen, to ensure safe delivery of oral health care. Over 80% of dental practitioners raised concerns on patients' accessibility to dental care during the pandemic. Despite tele-dentistry was introduced, almost half of the participants did not recognize tele-dentistry as an effective alternative. Moreover, negative impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on dental practitioner's professional career have been reported, including lower practice safety, reduction in working hours and income. Noteworthy, one quarter of participants even considered changing their practice environment, moving sectors or even leaving their career in dentistry. However, majority of the dental practitioners are willing to stay in their current practice environment and continue their career in dentistry. Our observations demonstrate the systematic disruption to dental practice faced in Australia due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Providing dental practitioners with timely educational training and support is important to minimise negative impacts of the challenges and to optimise dental care.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Hand Sanitizers
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Randomized controlled trials
/
Systematic review/Meta Analysis
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
BMC Oral Health
Journal subject:
Dentistry
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
S12903-022-02457-y
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