Conocimiento epidemiológico, preventivo y asistencial sobre covid-19 en estudiantes de odontología de tres universidades peruanas

Introduction: The rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has become a source of concern for dental students in recent years, as long as they are exposed to an increased risk of infection due to close contact with patients. Objective: To determine the level of epidemiological, preventive and healthcare-related knowledge about COVID-19 in dental students during their last academic year from three Peruvian universities. Methods: Descriptive, analytical and cross-sectional study, whose sample consisted of 219 dental students in their last academic year from Federico Villarreal National University, Peruvian Wings University and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega University in Lima, Peru. The instrument was a questionnaire of twenty closed questions on epidemiological, preventive and healthcare knowledge about COVID-19. The results were classified in three levels: low, medium and high. Central tendency measures and the ANOVA test with Tukey's adjustment test were performed for independent pairwise comparisons. In addition, the Spearman correlation test was applied to control the confounding variables (gender and age). Results: The students, in general, presented epidemiological (high), preventive (low) and healthcare (medium) knowledge, accounting for 86.3%, 53.4% and 63.5%, respectively. The global average score was 14.80±1.98. The students from Federico Villarreal National University presented significantly lower scores than the students from Inca Garcilaso de la Vega University (P≤0.001) and Peruvian Wings University (P=0.002). Conclusion: Knowledge deficiencies were found regarding preventive and care measures for COVID-19 control; therefore, it is important to train dental students with constant educational sessions and training programs on infection control practices regarding COVID-19.