Abstract
Objective: To evaluate the dentists' knowledge about biosafety considering the SARS-CoV-2 and the risks of increasing the COVID-19 outbreak by dental practices during the pandemic in Brazil. Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed by internet-based snowball sampling technique. A questionnaire with questions about different content was applied, and then analyzed the following two parameters: participants' Brazilian region and professional's specialty. Results: A total of 413 e-questionnaires from all Brazilian regions were considered valid. There were no significant differences among biosafety measures adopted by participants from different Brazilian regions (p≥0.05), except for those from North region, which have applied less previous oral antisepsis, temperature screening, and specific anamnesis tracking COVID-19 symptoms (p<0.05). The unique use of N95 mask was positively associated with North region (p<0.05). Expert participants of Groups 2 (oral surgery and correlate areas) and 4 (orthodontics, oral radiology and facial jaw orthopedics) were more updated than other ones (p<0.05). Conclusion: The biosafety protocols applied by participants were not adequate for the epidemiologic status of COVID-19 in each region of Brazil, from 13th May to 17th June 2020. Specialties linked to microbiology area or structured social networks have better applied preventive measures for COVID-19.
Highlights
At the end of 2019, in Wuhan, China, was identified a novel disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2(Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2) and classified as COVID-19 [1]
There were no significant differences among biosafety measures adopted by participants from different Brazilian regions (p≥0.05), except for those from North region, which have applied less previous oral antisepsis, temperature screening, and specific anamnesis tracking COVID-19 symptoms (p
Between March and June 2020, Brazil became the epicenter of the current coronavirus pandemic, being the worst outcome presented by the North region, followed by Northeast and Southeast [7]
Summary
At the end of 2019, in Wuhan, China, was identified a novel disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2(Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2) and classified as COVID-19 (coronavirus disease of 2019) [1]. Symptomatic patients are the main transmission source, recent studies have shown the risk of transmission from asymptomatic patients and patients in their incubation period (from 2 to 12 days) [1,3]. Based on all these aspects, dental practices became imminent risks for the increase of the COVID-19 outbreak, mainly after SARS-CoV-2 has been detected in the saliva of infected patients [4]. Between March and June 2020, Brazil became the epicenter of the current coronavirus pandemic, being the worst outcome presented by the North region, followed by Northeast and Southeast [7]
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