Oral health practitioners' knowledge, attitude, and awareness about coronavirus: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Abdosaleh Jafari; Mohammadtaghi Mohammadpour; Arash Ghanbarzadegan; Giampiero Rossi-Fedele; Peivand Bastani

doi:10.4103/jehp.jehp_939_20

Oral health practitioners' knowledge, attitude, and awareness about coronavirus: A systematic review and meta-analysis

J Educ Health Promot. 2021 Jan 28:10:39. doi: 10.4103/jehp.jehp_939_20. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Abdosaleh Jafari¹, Mohammadtaghi Mohammadpour², Arash Ghanbarzadegan³, Giampiero Rossi-Fedele⁴, Peivand Bastani¹

Affiliations

¹ Health Human Resources Research Center, School of Management and Medical Informatics, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
² Department of Health Care Management and Health Economics, Student Research Committee, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
³ Australian Research Centre for Population Oral Health, Adelaide Dental School, University of Adelaide, Adelaide 5000 SA, Australia.
⁴ Department of Endodontics, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, Adelaide Dental School, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.

Abstract

Background: Oral health practitioners are at the frontline of infection, particularly with respiratory viruses such as the novel coronavirus. Knowledge, awareness, and attitude of these workers are considered important in preventing and controlling the outbreak. This study aims to review the literature to provide a better understanding of the status of dentists and other oral health practitioners' knowledge, attitude, and awareness about COVID-19.

Methods: A systematic review was conducted through Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, and ProQuest up to May 6, 2020. All the knowledge, attitude, and practice studies on oral health workers about respiratory contagious outbreak the same as severe acute respiratory syndrome, Middle East respiratory syndrome, and COVID-19 were included in the meta-analysis.

Results: A total of eleven studies were included in the meta-analysis. 85.5% of the dentists and oral health practitioners had a high level of awareness about virus transmission modes (95% confidence interval [CI]: 78.6%-92.4%; P < 0.001). 80.7% of the oral health practitioners gave right answers to the questions related to virus transmission modes (95% CI: 69.9%-91.4%; P < 0.001), and 79.9% of the dentists had a positive attitude about virus transmission modes (95% CI: 66.4%-93.4%; P < 0.001).

Conclusion: This meta-analysis shows that the level of dentists and oral health practitioners' knowledge, awareness, and attitude was relatively high about the respiratory contagious diseases as well as COVID-19. The present results can shed further light for policymakers to support the best evidence medical education for all health-care workers the same as oral health practitioners. Preventing the dissemination of misinformation along with preparing comprehensive guidelines can be considered by the oral health policymakers, particularly in the more infected regions.

Keywords: COVID-19; and practice study; attitude; dentist; health promotion; knowledge; meta-analysis; oral health practitioner; respiratory contagious outbreaks.

Publication types

Review