Attention to COVID-19 Pandemic among Dental Experts of Kerala State, India: A Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice Study

Assessing the Compliance of Dental Clinicians towards Regulatory Infection Control Guidelines Using a Newly Developed Survey Tool: A Pilot Cross-Sectional Study in India

Adherence to the dental practice regulatory guidelines instituted during the COVID-19 pandemic is essential to minimize the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 strains. Given the lack of a valid and reliable survey tool to assess the adherence to dental practice guidelines, this study aims to develop, validate, and test a survey tool on a pilot sample of dental clinicians practicing in India. A survey tool was developed/validated through a sequential phasic approach: Phase I- developing survey using conceptual and literature framework; Phase II: ascertaining its validity and reliability; Phase III: pilot testing; and Phase IV: assessing construct validity by exploratory factor analysis (EFA) on the responses collected in Spring 2021. The EFA was achieved using a traditional unweighted least squares extraction method through a varimax rotation with Kaiser normalization. A six-factor solution with 18 items (with the global reliability of 86%) related to screening, regular infection prevention measures, infection control inside the dental operatory, disinfection of the dental unit, disposal, and other COVID-19-specific preventive measures were extracted. Our sample had higher compliance with regard to providing alcohol-based hand scrubs, providing protective gear to attendees, collecting travel/medical history, and screening patients for COVID-19 symptoms. In contrast, less compliance was observed regarding the use of paperless forms of practice and rubber dams in the operatory. The use of a validated survey tool ensures the collection of reliable and valid data, which can serve as baseline data to measure the uptake and effectiveness of dental practice regulatory guidelines in a clinical setting and community dental health clinics.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Dental Treatment in Kuwait—A Retrospective Analysis from the Nation’s Largest Hospital

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way dentistry has been practiced the world over. This study sought to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the patterns of attendance for dental treatment in a large hospital in Kuwait through comparisons with data from the year prior to the pandemic. Methods: A total of 176,690 appointment records from 34,250 patients presenting to the AlJahra specialist hospital in Kuwait for dental treatment from April 2019 to March 2021 were analyzed. The types of procedures and the departments in which they presented were analyzed, and the patterns of attendance before and during the pandemic were compared. Results: While there was a significant reduction in the number of orthodontic, endodontic, and periodontal procedures, there were no impacts on oral surgery, restorative procedures, or pediatric dentistry. Conclusions: There has been a return in the number of patients obtaining dental treatment; however, there has been a definite shift in the use of certain dental procedures.