Designing a Tool to Assess Professionalism among Dental Students.

Objectives: Professionalism is essential to a strong and trusted patient-doctor relationship, which is believed to potentially enhance patient compliance and treatment outcomes. The purpose of our study was to develop and conduct a psychometric analysis of an assessment tool to evaluate the professional behavior of dental students. Materials and Methods: The study was performed in the School of Dentistry, Tehran University of Medical Sciences. After providing a pool of various criteria to assess professionalism, an expert panel prepared the primary version of the tool. The tool was set in a questionnaire frame to explore the significance level and evaluation feasibility of each criterion. The questionnaire was completed by tutors of the "Medical Ethics" course (n=6). After necessary revisions, face and content validity were evaluated by giving the checklist to eight experienced dental educators to determine the relevance, clarity, and simplicity of the questions. In the second stage, the final checklist (37 items) was given to dental educators to evaluate twenty students. To assess the reliability of this checklist, at least two professors evaluated each student, and weighted-κ was calculated. Minor revisions were made based on the received feedback. Results: According to our data, the total validity of the tool (S-CVI) was 100%. For all items except one, the weighted-κ coefficient was ≥ 0.5, indicating sufficient reliability for these items. Conclusion: Despite the limitations of the present study, the designed tool to evaluate professionalism among dental students in different clinical departments seems to be both valid and reliable.

Oral saliva and COVID-19.

Outbreak pneumonia announced in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, had its causative factor classified as a new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). Since saliva can host several viruses including SARS-CoV-2, the transmission chance of viruses through saliva, particularly those causing respiratory infections, is unavoidable. COVID-19 can be detected through salivary diagnostic testing which has lots of advantages for medical care professionals and patients. It should be noted that not only does saliva offer an ecological niche for the colonization and development of oral microorganisms, but it also prevents the overgrowth of particular pathogens such as viral factors. The aim of this study is to gather all the information about saliva and its association with COVID-19 for the whole health care professionals across the world.

What dentists need to know about COVID-19.

This article aims at collecting all information needed for dentists regarding the COVID-19 pandemic throughout the world by reviewing articles published by now. In late 2019, a pneumonia outbreak of uncertain etiology happened in Wuhan, China. There were many reports related to a live-animal and seafood market, supporting that the pathogens were transferred from animals to humans, rapidly evolving into transmission from human to human. The pathogen was classified as 2019 Novel Corona Virus (2019-nCoV), and the disease was named COrona VIrus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). Given that COVID-19 has lately been detected in infected patients' saliva, the COVID-19 outbreak is an alert that all dental and other health professionals must be vigilant in defending against the infectious disease spread, and it may enable to assess whether non-invasive saliva diagnostic for COVID-19. There has so far been no evidence from randomized controlled trials to prescribe any particular anti-nCoV treatment or vaccine, and COVID-19 management has been widely supportive. Since the ACE-2 was expressing on oral cavity mucosa, there is a potentially huge COVID-19 infectious vulnerability risk for oral cavity and brought up a proof for the future prevention procedure in dental practice and daily life. As a result, the whole dental teams should be vigilant and keep patients and themselves in a safe environment by following the guideline in this study.

The Effect of Low-Level Laser Therapy on the Acceleration of Orthodontic Tooth Movement.

In clinical practice, low-level laser therapy (LLLT) is widely used. The main aim of this review is to assess the effectiveness of LLLT in accelerating tooth movement in human subjects. The PRISMA checklist was utilized as a guideline to carry out this systematic review. The electronic databases were searched from Google Scholar (2014-2018) and PubMed, and comprehensive research on this topic was also manually conducted. Therefore, 77 articles randomized clinical trials (RCTs) or controlled clinical trials (CCTs) were selected. After screening studies, consequently, eleven trials met the inclusion criteria. Eight out of 11 studies showed LLLT has a significant impact on the acceleration of orthodontic tooth movement, and there was no statistically significant difference in the rate of tooth movement between the laser group and the control group in the two remaining studies. Furthermore, five out of 11 articles showed that LLLT has no adverse effects. Although we have some degree of understanding from a cellular point of view to LLLT effects, we still do not know whether these cellular level changes have any effect on the clinical acceleration of orthodontic tooth movement. The results are inconclusive and cannot be generalized to the public community; therefore, well-structured studies are required.

The Effect of Carbon Dioxide Laser on Aphthous stomatitis Treatment: A Double-Blind Randomized Clinical Trial.

Introduction: This randomized clinical trial was designed to investigate the effect of carbon dioxide laser on the treatment of minor recurrent aphthous stomatitis (miRAS) as a painful and common oral ulcer. Methods: Fifteen patients with miRAS entered into this study after compliance with the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The patients were assigned to three groups of pulsed CO2 laser, continuous CO2 laser, and control. A pulsed CO2 laser with power of 261 W and pulse duration of 180 microseconds and continuous CO2 lasers with the power of 1 W and radiation duration of 5-10 seconds were used. In the control group, topical triamcinolone ointment of 0.1% was used. The degree of pain was measured using the visual analogue scale (VAS). The patients were evaluated in terms of pain intensity before and immediately after the treatment and at follow-up hours, 12, 24, 48, and 72 hours after the intervention, and changes in the size of the ulcers were measured before the treatment and on third, fifth, and seventh days. Results: The effect of CO2 laser with pulsed and continuous radiation on the pain intensity of aphthous lesions, immediately after the treatment and at subsequent follow-up hours were similar and even better than the control group (P<0.05). All three treatments had a similar effect on the size of the ulcer, which was not statistically significant (P>0.05). Conclusion: The results of this randomized controlled trial (RCT) showed that the carbon dioxide laser, whether with pulsed radiation or continuous radiation compared to the control group, had a better impact on the pain relief of aphthous lesions.