ABSTRACT
Background and Objectives: This systemic review aims to appraise and analyse the awareness, knowledge, attitude, and practice of teledentistry among dental practitioners during COVID-19. Materials and Methods: This review was registered in the PROSPERO database (CRD42021283404). Cross-sectional articles on dental practitioners' perceptions towards teledentistry published between March 2020 and September 2021 were searched in ten online databases (PubMed, Google Scholar, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, Cochrane, EMBASE, SIGLE, EBSCO, LILACS, and Open Grey). The Joanna Briggs Institute critical appraisal tool was employed to analyse the risk of bias (RoB) of each article, whereas the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine recommendation tool was used to evaluate the level of evidence. Data were analysed using the DerSimonian-Laird random effect model based on a single-arm approach. Results: Six studies were included and demonstrated Level 3 evidence. A single-arm meta-analysis revealed that dental practitioners had a high level of awareness (70.4%) and attitude (72.5%) towards teledentistry during the COVID-19 pandemic, but their knowledge level (57.9%) was moderate with a poor practice level (35.8%). A substantial heterogeneity was observed with the overall I2 ranging from 90.78% to 98.21%. Furthermore, meta-regression indicated that the sample size of each study had a significant (p < 0.05) impact on the degree of data heterogeneity. Conclusions: Despite their high degree of awareness and attitude, dental practitioners demonstrated moderate knowledge and relatively poor practice of teledentistry during the COVID-19 pandemic. More well-designed studies are warranted to investigate the alternatives for enhancing dental practitioners' knowledge and practice of teledentistry interventions.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Dentists , Cross-Sectional Studies , Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice , Humans , Pandemics , Professional Role , SARS-CoV-2ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: This systematic review aimed to evaluate the acceptance level of atraumatic restorative treatment (ART) and Hall Technique (HT) among children, parents, and general dental practitioners. METHOD AND MATERIALS: The study was registered in the PROSPERO database. Articles published between January 1960 and January 2021 were searched in 11 online databases and six textbooks according to PRISMA guidelines. Fifteen studies were chosen for qualitative and quantitative analyses. Among them, five studies focused on ART, seven studies on HT, and the remaining three studies compared both ART and HT. The children, parents, and general dental practitioners' acceptance were estimated using the DerSimonian-Laird random--effects method based on both single-arm and two-arm approaches. The risks of bias were evaluated using Cochrane RoB 2, ROBINS-1, NOS, and JBI assessment tools, while evidence levels were determined using OCEBM. Subgroup analysis and meta-regression were conducted to assess the effect of different evaluation methods on the acceptance rates of ART and HT among children and parents. RESULTS: The acceptance rates of ART among children, parents and general dental practitioners were 90.1%, 95.7%, and 67.7%, respectively, whilst the acceptance rates of HT were 88.3%, 85.7%, and 81.8%, respectively. Two-arm meta-analysis revealed no significant difference (P > .05) between the acceptance of HT and ART among children and parents, respectively. Subgroup analysis showed that using questionnaire-based evaluation had a higher (P < .05) acceptance value than using face scale-based evaluation. CONCLUSION: Both ART and HT are considered well--accepted among children, parents, and general dental practitioners, although general dental practitioners showed a slightly lower level of acceptance. A standardized evaluation tool for assessing acceptance level should be established for better comparison among published articles. Future well-designed studies are warranted to verify the validity of the present review.