Influence of information source regarding COVID-19 knowledge among the undergraduate dental students during the early lockdown: a multi-national study.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To assess the influence of information sources on the knowledge regarding COVID-19 among undergraduate dental students in India, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, and Turkey. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: An online questionnaire in a Google form link was circulated among the target population via various online platforms. It consisted of 14 close-ended questions assessing these students' knowledge and source of COVID-19-related information. SPSS software version 21.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) was used to compute descriptive statistics, Chi-square test, independent t-test, and ANOVA tests for comparing various variables, and a p-value<0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS: The study yielded 809 responses from dental undergraduate students from India, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, and Turkey. Dental students from Turkey reported a higher mean knowledge score of 7.91±1.34 and 7.88±0.58 for Malaysian dental students. In contrast, the lower scores were achieved by Saudi Arabia (7.36±1.22) and India (7.37±1.21) dental students, and the findings were statistically significant (p<0.05). The study population used various sources to attain information regarding COVID-19. Most respondents (63.1%) utilized information regarding COVID-19 from multiple sources rather than single sources (36.9%). CONCLUSIONS: Reliable and validated information sources resulted in higher knowledge scores. Turkey and Malaysia dental students reported a higher mean knowledge score and the lowest for Saudi Arabia and India dental students. There is increased popularity of social media platforms as information sources.