PERCEPTIONS ON UTILITY AND PRACTICES OF TELE-DENTISTRY AMONG DENTAL PRACTITIONERS IN COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

Objective: To explore the perceptions of tele-dentistry benefits in improving dental practice and patient care among the dental professionals of Karachi in COVID-19 pandemic. Study Design: Cross-sectional survey-based study Setting: Dental professionals of Karachi. Period: Jan 2020 to jun 2020. Material and Method: Questionnaire was distributed among three hundred dental professionals through social media. The inclusion criteria included post-graduation residents, general dental practitioners and dental specialists. Dentists with less than 1 year of clinical experience were excluded from the survey. Data was analyzed using SPSS, version 21.0. p-value<0.05. Results: Responders were 191(57%) general dentists, 84(30%) postgraduate trainees, 8(3%) dental specialists. A large majority 236 (83.4%) of responders were afraid of getting infected even with proper SOPs. 146(76.4%) general dentist, 77(91.7%) postgraduate trainees and 8(100.0%) consultants agreed that tele-dentistry will help in decrease in spreading the infection during this pandemic. Conclusion: In the current study, it was observed that majority of participants accepted the idea of tele-dentistry but due to limited availability of technology it is limited in practice. In Australia, dentists denied the usefulness of technology in clinical diagnosis. Various studies conducted worldwide supports the result of our study and agreed upon the fact that tele-dentistry favors adequate consultation in different fields of dentistry.