COVID-19 vaccination status of senior dentistry students and their views on the changing educational processes in Turkey: A survey study

Abstract

Background: COVID-19 has spread rapidly all over the world and has become a global concern. After March 16, 2020, dental education in Turkey completely switched to online education. Aim: This survey aimed to evaluate the opinion of students about online education. In addition, it aimed to determine the COVID-19 vaccine status of the students and whether they contracted the disease. Materials and Methods: This study was conducted with the use of a web-based survey and 281 senior intern dentistry students from different universities in Turkey participated in the survey. The survey consisted of questions created to understand the view of the students on online education during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, there were questions about the COVID-19 infection and COVID-19 vaccine experiences of the students. Descriptive analyses were done and differences between the gender was analyzed with Mann–Whitney U-test at a significance level of P ≤ 0.05. Results: In the study, 68.32% of the students thought COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected theoretical education and 83.27% of them thought COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected practical education. Of the surveyed students, 28.82% of them had COVID-19 infection. The percentage of students who had at least 1 dose of vaccine was 98.58%. Conclusions: The study revealed the unsatisfactory experience of students with the newly introduced online education during COVID-19 pandemic. It is gratifying to notice the higher rate of vaccination among students.

Keywords

• covid-19 pandemic
• covid-19 vaccine
• dental education
• distance education
• online education
• pediatric dentistry education