Evaluation of Knowledge and Awareness among dental students about emerging outbreak of COVID-19: A Cross-Sectional study

Background: The ongoing outbreak of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), emerged in Wuhan, China, and caused disruption among the health care populace and the rest of the world. As COVID-19 is highly contagious in nature, the front-line health care workers are at a higher risk and dental health care workers are of no exception to this and they are also at high risk than other health care professionals as we expend a lot of time close to the patient's oral cavity and the aerosols generated from dental treatments and the fluids that we came into contact like saliva, blood, etc., increases the risk multifold. Hence our aim was to assess the awareness, knowledge of dental students towards COVID-19.Materials and methods: A total of 350 dental students participated in the study. A structured custom-made questionnaire composed of 16 questions was designed to assess the students level of awareness, knowledge, towards COVID 19. The questionnaire was distributed among 3rd 4th year, interns undergraduate and postgraduate students, and informed consent was obtained before commencing the questionnaire. Results: A total of 350 students participated in a questionnaire study. The majority of the study participants were females (74%) and majority of the students were aware of CoVID-19 (99%) and only 1% were unaware. 79% of students were aware that COVID 19 is highly transmissible and about 76% has knowledge about the incubation period of COVID 19 which is usually between 1-14 days. Inadequate knowledge and awareness make students vulnerable to infections. Adequate training is required to protect students and their patients.Conclusion: Our study concluded that the majority of dental students had knowledge and awareness and its detrimental effects on COVID 19. Few students had a lack of awareness and inadequate knowledge about the mode of transmission, cross-contamination with dental instruments, incubation period and laboratory investigations.