Online ISSN: 2515-8260

Title: Assessment of dental practitioner’s perception of COVID-19 pandemic effects on their clinical practice: A questionnaire-based study

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1 Sridevi Ugrappa, 2Ajay Jain, 3Vijay Kumar Ugrappa

Abstract

Aim: To evaluate the dentist’s perception regarding the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on their clinical practice in the post-lockdown period. Materials and Methods: The present study was conducted among dentists, practicing in India, through an online close-ended structured questionnaire. Both convenience and snowball sampling were used for the distribution of online forms. The frequency distribution test and chi-square test (α=0.05) were performed for the demographics, clinical expenditure of the dentists & treatment provided to the patients by the dentists and to evaluate their perception of clinical practice in post-lockdown period, respectively. The null hypothesis stated that there is no difference in their clinical practices and alternative hypothesis stated that the dentists did anticipate and felt the change in their clinical practices amid COVID-19 pandemic. The data were tabulated and analysed using IBM SPSS for Windows, v. 21.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, USA). Results: The response rate was 98.52% and the p-valuefor all the questions related to the perception of their clinical practice amid COVID-19 pandemic was less than 0.05, suggested that the dentists have anticipated and felt that there will be a change in their clinical practice amid COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusion: The dentists hadthe perception that their clinical practices will be highly affected in post-lockdown period and they are seeking support from the government in terms of tax waiving on dental products, to cope up with their clinic expenses and seeking support from the dental council in terms of standardization of treatment charges and waste management protocol in the post-lockdown period.

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