Knowledge and Awareness of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) among Chinese dental students——a comparison study

  1. Chengdan Deng
  2. Huangshui Ma
  3. Yuke Shou
  4. Yuxuan Zhao
  5. Yang Li
  6. Bing Shi

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Abstract

Backgroud

This study aimed to measure the knowledge and awareness of COVID-19 among Chinese dental students during the global outbreak recently.

Method

A descriptive cross-sectional study was performed among dental students and nonmedical college students in China. All the participants were required to anonymously answer a reliable online questionnaire, which covered 3 different fields of COVID-19. Average scores of dental students (D group), including junior (JD group) and senior dental students (SD group), and nonmedical college students (N group) were compared respectively. Chi-square test and independent sample T test were taken for statistical analysis with SPSS.12.

Results

Totally 497 questionnaires were collected, including 224 from dental students and 273 from non-medical students. The overall average score was 57±19.2. The average scores of dental students were 64.5±18. The D group had significantly higher scores on the total score, section scores, and 20 questions respectively than with the N group. No significant differences were found on 5 questions. Compared with the N group, the SD group won on all three sections while JD group failed to win on the diagnose section.

Conclusion

Although the dental student showed good awareness regarding the clinical aspects of COVID-19 than non-medical students, there are still some weakness in the part of treatment and prevention, which need to be strengthened for better prepare during work. Besides, the low accuracy rate of lower grade dental students is also worth noting.

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    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.02.03.429522: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power AnalysisWith a margin of error of 5%, power of study of 80%, 95% confidence level in the results, the sample size required at least 185 individuals for each group.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    In this study, although dental students showed a better understanding of COIVD-19, there were still some weaknesses that will be discussed below. 1. Transmission: More than 80% knew that droplets and close contact were the primary means of transmission. Interestingly, dental students were less correct on fecal-oral transmission than non-medical students, and so were seniors lower than junior. A latest report claimed that the SARS-Cov-2 was isolated from the feces of patients. But, there are still no case could confirm the fecal-oral transmission. Even so, the wrong answer may indicate that senior dental student pay a close attention to the updating news of COVID-19. As a particular transmission during the oral clinic, 5% dental students admitted they didn’t know about aerosols. Moreover,17% didn’t know the correct way to avoid aerosol production. According to previous researches, MERS was easily spread by aerosols in medical facilities with central air conditioning, and had led to super-outbreaks of hospital-acquired infections[14].Prolonged exposure to high concentrations of aerosols in a closed environment may contribute to the spread of novel coronavirus[15]. The high speed turbine and ultrasonic tooth cleaning machine in the oral treatment tools will produce a large number of bioaerosols mixed with patients’ saliva and blood in the contaminated area from the patient’s head to the radius of the doctor’s back [16].Droplets mix in the air to form aerosols that can cause infe...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2021.02.03.429522v1 on bioRxiv