Self-assessment of Anxiety Level and Oral Hygiene Practice in Dental Students of Cairo University During Covid-19 Pandemic

Covid-19, the infection caused by a novel corona virus detected in December 2019 in Wuhan (Hubei province), is now a pandemic announced by World Health Organization, raising concerns of widespread panic and increasing anxiety in individuals. This outbreak results in mass quarantine in Egypt since middle of March 2020. Brooks et al. (2019) reviewed and reported quarantine could bring "post traumatic stress symptoms, confusion, and anger. Stressors included longer quarantine duration, infection fears, frustration, boredom, inadequate supplies, inadequate information, financial loss, and stigma.". Many universities decided to suspend in-person classes and evacuate students in responding to the intensifying concerns surrounding Covid-19. This action can lead to negative psychological consequences among college students. Oral health related behavior and attitudes habits correlate with oral health status and can be considered to be its predictors . There is a claim of potential connection between high bacterial load in the mouth and complications associated with Covid-19 infection. Bacteria present in the meta genome of patients severely infected with Covid-19 included high reads for Prevotella, Staphylococcus, and Fusobacterium, all usually commensal organisms of the mouth. Over 80% of patients in ICU exhibited an exceptionally high bacterial load. Accordingly, the investigators assume that good oral hygiene better to be maintained during a Covid-19 outbreak in order to reduce the bacterial load in the mouth and the risk of a bacterial super infection in case of catching the infection .

While there seems to be a common belief that psychosocial stress affects oral hygiene behavior, this assumption has rarely been proved9 Dental students, as the future providers of dental care, are ex¬pected to be role models for their patients regarding the oral hygiene practice and they supposed to be aware of the importance of preserving the oral health. Thus, we intended to select them as our population to study how the level of anxiety during pandemic could affect the practice of oral hygien