Knowledge and practices of dentists regarding MERS-CoV: A cross-sectional survey in Saudi Arabia

Knowledge and practices of dentists regarding MERS-CoV: A cross-sectional survey in Saudi Arabia

Faraz A Farooqi, Balgis O. Gaffar, Asim A. Al-Ansari, Adel S Alagl, Maha El Tantawi, Khalid M. Almas

Objectives: To assess virus knowledge among dentistsin Saudi Arabia and to identify factors associated withrecommended management practices of patients.Method: A structured questionnaire was distributed todentists in major Saudi cities between September 2016and December 2017. The questionnaire investigatedparticipants’ knowledge about Middle EastRespiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV)transmission, consequences, patient identificationand history taking practices. Data was collectedusing paper-based questionnaires or an online linksent to dentists registered with Saudi Dental Societynationwide. The analysis was carried using StatisticalPackage for Social Sciences for Windows, version 22.0(IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) logistic regression,odds ratio and confidence intervals to identify therelationship between variables.Results: A total of 423 dentists responded the paper-basedquestionnaire. Overall the knowledge was goodwith gaps in history taking practices. Best managementpractices of MERS-CoV patients were significantlyhigher among dentists with better knowledge of virustransmission (odd ration [OR]=1.16, p

2019

dentist, Saudi Arabia, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus

DOI: 10.15537/smj.2019.7.24304

Saudi Medical Journal

Ministry of Defence and Aviation

Medicine