Attitude And Perception Towards Risk of Covid-19 Transmission Among Parents of Children Visiting Dental OPD in Private Dental Institution

Abstract

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic started in late 2019 and it is still prevailing. It has become a strain on today's condition. More importantly, it has affected the healthcare utilization behavior of people and it also increased the level of anxiety and stress in parents. When compared to adults children have a healthy respiratory system and an active innate immune system which play an important role. Due to dental treatment nature, procedures produce splatters and aerosols which contain more blood or saliva from patients and carry the risk of high chances of transmission of the virus on a large - scale. Aim: The study aims to evaluate the attitude and perception towards the risk of COVID transmission among parents of children visiting dental OPD in a private dental institution. Materials and methods: This is a cross-sectional study containing a sample size of 115. A prevalidated questionnaire is prepared and uploaded in Google forms. This standard questionnaire in Google forms has been circulated. At the end of the survey, all the data were collected and tabulated. The frequency and percentage were calculated and the data is being analyzed by using Chi-square analysis. The Chi-square analysis was done by using the IBM SPSS software version 23. Results: The findings indicate that (90.29%) of parents of children visiting dental OPD would take their child to the dental department if their child had a toothache and (89.14%) of parents reported that the various measures are taken in the dental department give them confidence. (22.33%) of parents aged 40-49 reported that the various measures are taken in the dental department give them confidence which is higher compared to the parents aged 30-39 (18.45%). Chi-square analysis was done and the association was found to be statistically significant, p-value: 0.015(p<0.05). Hence statistically significant. Conclusion: In summary, The attitude and perception of parents about COVID-19 in children are good and in further studies, some measures can be taken to treat the emergency treatment patient with low risk.