Awareness and perception of dentistry students studying in Cyprus regarding COVID-19: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

COVID-19 has been recognized at the end of 2019 and has been recognized in more than 215 countries with more than 24 million reported cases. Dental practitioners were regarded under high risk of getting COVID-19 due to their working environment and the mode of transmission of the virus. Present study aimed to evaluate the awareness and assessing the knowledge of dental students and dentists on COVID-19. The study population consisted of undergraduate students who are currently studying dentistry in Cyprus. Students were sent an onlinesurvey and data were collected on 16th of April. Survey was comprised of questions about the demography, education level of the participants, their infection control knowledge, conditions that require treatment during pandemic. A total of 594 students with equal gender distribution joined the survey. The age group of the participants were mostly between 18-25 age (94%) with 63% pre-clinical and 37% clinical students. The majority of participants were aware that dentists were at high risk group in terms of COVID-19 (98.5%). When clinical questions were asked, data indicatedstrong relationship between participants’ responses with their level of study. Upon asking COVID-19 specific questions, participants that have taken microbiology course were reported to have higher correct answer rate. Dental students studying in Cyprus demonstrated high awareness of COVID-19 and the higher risks of COVID-19 exposure that dental professionals face. Study demonstrated the importance of microbiology courses, as it significantly affected the answers to the questions on diagnosis methods and immune response to COVID-19.