Assessment of anxiety and behavior changes on digital education in undergraduate dental students during COVID-19 pandemic

Context: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, to avoid community spread of the disease, various academic institutions were closed to prevent infecting the students. Hence their relocation from the institution resulted in online academic learning. Reports indicated that the students undergoing online academic learning experienced distress in the form of anxiety, anger and insomnia. Aims: The aim of this study was to assess the changes in mental attitude, behavioral pattern, and anxiety level along with the impact of online education on academics so as to receive suggestions regarding digital education from undergraduate dental students. Settings and Design: An observational, cross-sectional study was conducted formulating online semi-structured, open-ended questionnaires, to obtain inputs regarding digital education using Google Forms and the snowball sampling method. Subjects and Methods: The data collection was initiated on August 6 at 4 PM IST and closed on August 13, 2020, at 4 PM IST. We received the response from 488 students from five dental institutions of Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Andhra Pradesh. Statistical analysis was performed using Microsoft Excel for obtaining an overall percentage of mental attitude, anxiety, behavior changes, and academics. IBM SPSS Statistics 20 software was used to evaluate correlation among all parameters with the analysis of variance test. Results: A statistically significant association was seen between digital education with anxiety (P = 0.015), behavior changes (P = 0.000), and academics (P = 0.000). Students contributed positive inputs to enhance the learning outcome in academics on the digital platform. Conclusions: Online academic sessions have eased the learning process to a certain extent, but this mode of education needs more refinement in the form of clinical demonstration videos, sharing of study material, well-planned and spaced definite timetable, and postsession evaluation. These suggestions were put forth by the students as feedback to make the experience entirely stress-free and aid their learning process.