Impacto da modalidade de ensino online em conhecimento e atitudes sobte as novas práticas de biossegurança no contexto da COVID-19 entre o corpo clínico de uma instituição pública de ensino superior em odontologia

Abstract

Dental practice and teaching suffered major repercussions generated by the COVID-19 pandemic, largely due to the inherent characteristics of dental care for patients and the high risk of exposure to SARS-CoV-2, requiring specific biosafety protocols for everyone involved in the process. The need to mitigate the spread of the disease led to the implementation of online or blended teaching modalities, using them for training and resumption from various academic activities. The objective of this study was to analyze the attitudes and knowledge of the internal community of the Faculty of Dentistry of the Universidade Federal of Minas Gerais (FAO-UFMG) in relation to the new infection control guidelines in times of COVID-19 in the dental environment, before and after online training intervention on the subject. This is an observational, cross-sectional study and another before-and-after, quasi-experimental epidemiological study. The research was submitted and approved by the Ethics Committee-UFMG. The population of the study was the entire group of undergraduate and graduate students, faculty members, and dental assistants of FAO-UFMG. All the clinical staff at the Dental School were included in the research, and participants that do not respond during the data collection period were excluded. Data collection was through a self-reporting online pre-tested quiz. The questionnaire presented three blocks of questions: demographic data, knowledge, and attittudes to the different recommended PPE, and, finally, the main guidelines for coping with COVID-19 in dental environments. After the first phase of data collection, an online educational intervention was carried out on the topics covered in the data collection instrument and, after that, a new phase of the collection was carried out with the same participants. Subsequently, descriptive statistical analyzes were performed with the data from the first and second phases and statistical tests for the paired nominal data (before and after). The evaluation of correct answers was carried out based on the biosafety recommendations in dental environments of the main bodies of international and national relevance disclosed during the collection period. The online educational intervention had no impact on improving the level of knowledge and attitudes about some variables under study, such as the correct order of donning PPE and the reduction of aerosol generation but obtained 100% of use in the order of doffing PPE. The study was limited by a low rate of return in the second phase. However, it can be concluded that a single online intervention was not effective in significantly impacting the outcomes evaluated, recommending blended teaching and repetitive training for learning.