Open AccessCOVID-19 Pandemic Driven Knowledge, Attitude, Clinical Practice, Distress Reactions, and Post-Traumatic Growth of Dental Care Providers in Riyadh City, Saudi Arabia: A Cross-Sectional Study
Author(s) -
Nawaf Labban,
Afnan F. Alfouzan,
Nouf AlShibani,
Hanan N. Al-Otaibi,
Sara Mohammad Al Taweel,
Shahad Hamad Al Ghanem,
Stuart Schrader
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
the open dentistry journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.428
H-Index - 25
ISSN - 1874-2106
DOI - 10.2174/1874210602115010748
Subject(s) - worry , anxiety , medicine , pandemic , distress , family medicine , cross sectional study , computer assisted web interviewing , covid-19 , clinical psychology , psychiatry , psychology , disease , pathology , marketing , infectious disease (medical specialty) , business
Objective:The present study aimed to assess knowledge, attitude, clinical practices, distress reactions, and post-traumatic growth of dentists during the COVID-19 pandemic in Riyadh City. Methodology:An online questionnaire was developed to assess various dental professionals from both governmental and private sectors during the early COVID-19 outbreak in Riyadh City, Saudi Arabia. The questionnaire was framed to assess the demographic variables, knowledge, attitude, and clinical practices towards handling the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the general anxiety disorder-7 (GAD-7), worry questionnaire items, short form of post-traumatic growth inventory (PTGI-SF), and life satisfaction questionnaire items were developed to assess the anxiety, worries, post-traumatic growth, and life satisfaction of dental care providers following the traumatic events. Data were analysed using SPSS 22.0 and R environment ver.3.2.2. Continuous measurement results were presented as mean ± SD, and categorical measurements results were presented in number (%). Results:Our study's significant findings revealed that a majority of the dentists were in the age group of 21-30 and practiced general dentistry. The study participants in age groups 51–60 and 41–50 years old showed more liability in perceiving COVID-19 as an extremely dangerous disease than 31–40 and 21–30 age groups. The majority of respondents (63.4%) had an anxiety scale score of greater than 40, followed by 22.8% with scores 20-40 and 13.9% with scores less than 20, respectively. The mean scores for the GAD-7 and the worry items were 8.24 ± 3.21 and 13.92 ± 4.77, respectively. The data showed that most survey participants had adopted moderate post-traumatic changes during the pandemic, as evident by their mean score of 34.17 ± 3.40. The life satisfaction of the participants was neutral, as demonstrated by their mean score of 20.16 ± 4.03. Conclusion:This study’s findings delineated that the COVID-19 pandemic situation has influenced dentists' mental health, with a moderate level of anxiety, and worries among other psychological symptoms. Furthermore, there was adequate knowledge regarding the COVID-19 among dentists; however, the pandemic affected the financial conditions of the respondents. There was a moderate level of post-traumatic growth and neutral life satisfaction of the dental providers.