Abstract
OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study is to evaluate the awareness, comport-ment and attitude/perception of dentists regard-ing the use of photodynamic (PD) therapy be-fore and during COVID-19 pandemic around the globe.SUBJECTS AND METHODS: An online sur-vey was performed by sending out an online questionnaire comprising 21 questions among dental practitioners working in four different countries: Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Malaysia and United Kingdom. The survey evaluated dental practitioners' level of awareness about the PD therapy, comportment and attitude for its impli-cation and prevalence in daily clinical practice. For statistical significance the Chi-square anal-ysis with Spearman Correlation coefficient was conducted to assess the sub-groups and cor-relating the factors with the level of awareness of the dental practitioners.RESULTS: A total of 1,219 dental practitioners from four different countries (Saudi Arabia, Pa-kistan, Malaysia and United Kingdom) respond-ed to the questionnaire. The median age of the respondents from was 37, 34, 36 and 39 re-spectively. The majority of dental practitioners demonstrated to have an acceptable level of awareness regarding PD therapy. Nearly 76%, 74%, 79% and 80% of the individuals from Sau-di Arabia, Pakistan, Malaysia and United King-dom respectively were aware of the role/mech-anism of action of the PD therapy. Moreover, in preponderance, practitioners were confident that the effect of PD therapy will not be reduced in patients infected with COVID-19. The major -ity of dental practitioners were convinced that successful dental treatment due to PD therapy is linked majorly with therapies done in relation to four major dental specialties: prosthodon-tics, endodontic, restorative dentistry and peri-odontology. Approximately more than 90% of the dentists were sure that the rate of COVID-19 transmission can be reduced by using PD ther-apy in oral treatments. The dental practitioners from Saudi Arabia (91%), Pakistan (82%), Malay-sia (83%) and United Kingdom (82%) were con-tented to learn about PD therapy for its use in clinical practice. Nearly more than 95% of the practitioners from the four countries were keen to attend the lectures/hands-on workshops re-garding PD therapy to enhance their skills and knowledge. More than 80% of dentists do not re-fuse the peripheral role of PD therapy with their patients.CONCLUSIONS: The respondents from the four countries displayed passable level of aware-ness regarding basic information of PD thera-py and its clinical implication in dental specialty. Nevertheless, there is a need to develop aware-ness regarding the use of PD therapy among den-tal practitioners during their undergraduate pro-gram. Furthermore, lectures and hands-on work -shops should be arranged to train dental practi-tioners in order to enhance their skills for its so-licitation in clinical practice. It is perceived by the dentists in the four countries that the use of PD therapy can effectively reduce COVID-19 rate of transmission.