The recent pandemic has led to the suspension of offline training and the exploration of distant learning methods. Objective: This paper aims to identify and compare the overall level of preparedness of dental graduates for their cognitive, communication, and professional skills in terms of offline and online educational methods from students’ perspectives. Material and methods: A web-based non-randomized longitudinal trial was conducted amongst 182 students pursuing their final year in a dental college in Bangalore City, India for the academic years 2020-21 Study Group (Exposure to only online teaching) and 2021- 22 Control Group (Exposure to both online and Classroom-based teaching). A Pre-tested online questionnaire was used to evaluate the change in the assessment of educational experience and the level of preparedness of dental graduates for cognitive, communication, and professional skills for the academic batch 2020-21 and then for 2021-22. Results: The study group missed educational experiences more as a result of the lockdown than the control group (p<0.05) but considered online assessment as a good evaluation method (p<0.05). Clinical Training is perceived as most affected by distant learning methodology. Moreover, the study group felt a greater need to be mentored or indirectly supervised following graduation (p<0.05) despite reporting almost similar self-perceived preparedness levels. Conclusion: Online Education has shown similar preparedness levels among dental graduates for cognitive, communication, and professional skills making it a promising alternative methodology for offline education. However, there are a few uncertainties regarding clinical practice so; a “Smart Hybrid Model” of educational approach for dental education should be promulgated.

PURPOSE:The National Service Scheme (NSS) is one of the educational reforms started by the Government of India aimed at the overall development of students, especially in terms of social responsibility and personality. The present trial was undertaken to evaluate the impact of the NSS on the professional and personal competency skills of dental students in India. METHODS:A randomized controlled trial was undertaken among 84 final-year dental students in a dental college from Maharashtra, India. The participants were randomly allocated into the study group (exposed to the NSS) and the control group (not exposed to the NSS). A self-administered questionnaire evaluated the perceived change experienced in their professional skills (clinical confidence and communicational skills) and personal development (confidence, leadership skills, moral values, and social responsibility) from baseline and the exposure to the NSS program via global self-assessment test, then-test, and transition judgment. The mean of the groups was compared, and a t-test was employed. RESULTS:The study group experienced a significant level of improvement in their perceived levels of communication skills, confidence, leadership skills, and social responsibility in comparison to the control group with p ≤ 0.05 for the global self-assessment scale. The transition judgment was also statistically significant for change in overall perceived confidence and leadership skills (p ≤ 0.05). CONCLUSION:The NSS provides promising results in improving the overall perceived professional and personal competency of dental students in India. Thus, such kinds of programs can play a vital role in dental education in developing countries.

Undergraduate students of a university are a crucial transitional age group to examine the effects of poor oral health on a population’s quality of life (OHRQoL). Objective: Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate how OHRQoL-related factors affected undergraduate students at a University in Delhi, India. Material and methods: 451 undergraduate students from Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi, India responded to a cross-sectional hybrid mode questionnaire survey. Using the Oral Health Impact in Adolescents scale (OHIA), the OHRQoL of research participants was evaluated. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare OHIA scores for individuals in various age groups and according to their gender. Results: Mean OHIA score was 4.87 (SD 1.1). When compared to younger age groups and men, older individuals and women felt that oral health-related issues reduced their quality of life. Oral health’s physical and psychological components were the main cause of the study participants’ worse OHRQoL. Conclusion: The average OHIA score illustrates the minimal influence of oral health on university students’ quality of life. To better understand how dental health affects this age group’s QoL, more studies on groups that are similar to this one are needed.

The psyche about the adverse effects of the Covid-19 pandemic has got fixed to a level of conviction that committing suicide is directly linked to coronavirus infection. The statistics of suicidal hangings for the pre-Covid-19 and the Covid-19 periods were compared in the Indian capital. The data analysis of the autopsy records showed the absence of temporal association between the incidence rates of suicides between these two periods. The study concludes that there was no net increase in suicide rates in the study population of this lower-middle-income group country during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Aim: The study aimed to examine the quality of life (QOL) among oral healthcare professionals (OHCPs) during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in India. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional web-based study was conducted on 138 OHCPs (general dentists/specialists) from public and private sectors in India in July 2021 through emails and WhatsApp using the 26-item World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL-BREF) tool to assess their QOL. Unpaired t-tests and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests were employed to check for the association between the demographic characteristics and the QOL with a p-value <0.05. Results: The overall mean QOL score of the study participants was 75.66 ± 12.4. The environmental domain reported the highest mean score of QOL (94.8), whereas the social relationship domain reported the lowest mean score of QOL (44.5). The type of work significantly affected the QOL scores in three out of four domains: physical (p = 0.04), psychological (p = 0.02), and social relationship domain (p = 0.003). About 68% of study participants felt their QOL was good or very good, while 7% considered it poor or very poor. Conclusion: The QOL of OHCPs has been significantly influenced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the four domains, the social relationship domain has been the most severely impacted, which could lead to higher psychological stress for OHCPs while providing dental care to patients. Clinical significance: Like frontline workers, dental professionals are also suffering from increased psychological stress while rendering oral care to patients. Hence, there is an utmost need for wellness programs to be organized to improve the QOL of OHCPs in the country. © The Author(s). 2022.

Background: The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is profoundly affecting life around the globe. Social Isolation, contact restrictions and economic shutdown impose a complete change to the psychosocial environment threatening the mental health of young adults significantly. Objectives: The present study aims to assess the impact of Social Isolation on the mental health of young adults during the pandemic. Methods: A web based research was conducted on a sample of 438 college students of age 18-24 years. The participants were asked for responding to a standardized online questionnaire that included questions related to their anxiety levels and the 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7). Results: The results revealed 78.4% of the study populations were suffering with mild (35.2%), moderate (23.7%), and severe anxiety (19.4%) respectively. Univariate and Logistic Regression Analysis revealed gender and course/year of study had a significant effect on the level of anxiety (p<0.05). Also, students living alone and having a relative or an acquaintance infected with COVID-19 were likely to be more anxious (p < 0.05). Spearman correlation analysis depicted Social Isolation as the main Covid-19 related stressor which was positively correlated and highly significant (p=0.0001) to the level of anxiety of young adults. Conclusions: The present study revealed approximately 43% of young adults is suffering from moderate to severe anxiety levels which require urgent attention.

The COVID-19 pandemic experienced by the Indian subcontinent has been lethal compared to the pandemics of the past. The only lesson learned so far is the need to update our health-care infrastructure. However, besides this, there is also an urgent need to make long-term changes to the continuance of our dental educational system, which is important for the foundations of our mainstream health-care services. This article evaluates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Indian dental education, taking into due consideration the difficulties and available resources. It also intends to recommend strategies and prepare for such scenarios in future. Recent advances in pedagogical innovations involving technology have provided many prospects, especially in the field of online platform learning, but the students/staff requires proficient learning to utilize it effectively. Furthermore, the foremost need is to develop and evaluate the most appropriate technology-based learning for the preclinical and clinical settings. Thus, the current pandemic has undeniably brought countless challenges but also gave the prospect to revolutionize future of Indian dental education.

Workplace Violence against doctors and other staff is not a new phenomenon and has global dimensions. The reports of doctors getting thrashed by patients and their relatives are making headlines around the world and are shared extensively on social media. All health care providers are worried about violence at his/her workplace, and few are trained to avoid or deal with such situations. This article aims to review the possible reasons for such violence against doctors and staff and discusses the possible steps at a personal, institutional, and governmental level as remedies to mitigate such episodes.

Background: The Novel Coronavirus disease has inherently brought a fear of uncertainty and continuity resulting in broad psychological effects on the mental health of the present generation. Although, few studies have tried to evaluate the degree of fear of COVID-19 but none has been done on young adults especially dental undergraduate healthcare providers so far. Hence, the present study aims to assess the fear of COVID-19 among young adults in India.Methods: A web based study was conducted on a sample of 309 dental undergraduate students of age group 18-25 years (young adults). The participants were asked for responding to a standardized online questionnaire prepared on google form that included the recently developed 7-item Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S) to assess emotional fear reactions.Results: Overall mean fear score for the study population was 18.09+6.79. A significantly higher number of the study population reported low fear (56.6%). Age, place of residence, academic year, steady source of income and the students whose relative/friend got covid-19 depicted a significant difference based on the level of fear (p<0.05). Females and the students staying alone displayed higher levels of fear compared to their respective counterparts.Conclusions: Fear is a common psychological outcome during pandemics especially amongst healthcare providers as COVID-19 pandemic is a continuously evolving disease outbreak related to stress, disease contraction and dying. Thus, managing this fear in the young minds is imperative in order to reduce the psychological implications affecting their mental health due to the current COVID crisis.

Background: Tobacco cessation interventions provided in a dental office or hospital settings are beneficial in helping patients to quit tobacco. Regular monitoring of these interventions is required to assess their success rate and factors hindering its improvement. This study evaluated cessation services provided through a Tobacco Cessation Clinic (TCC) established in a government teaching dental hospital in Delhi, India. Materials and Methods: Patients visiting the TCC from April 2016 to March 2018 were contacted to participate in this study. All the willing participants were administered a structured questionnaire telephonically or in person. The questionnaire focused on gathering information on patients' current tobacco use status, feedback on intervention provided at TCC and reasons for missing TCC appointments. Bivariate and multivariate analysis was performed to assess the effect of socio-demographic factors, nicotine dependence and interventions at TCC on current tobacco use status of participants. Results: Of the 309 participants, 60 (19.4%) reported complete tobacco abstinence and 78 (22.3%) reduced consumption by more than half from their first visit to TCC. Most of the participants (81.5%) were satisfied with the tobacco cessation interventions provided at the TCC. Multivariate analysis shows that odds of quitting were higher in participants with low tobacco dependence (OR 3.03, CI 0.98,9.35) and those who were satisfied with counselling method at TCC (OR 8.8, CI 2.05, 38.35). Conclusion: Interventions provided at our TCC were found beneficial by the study participants to reduce tobacco consumption or achieve total tobacco abstinence. A timely reminder can be provided to increase patients' compliance.

BACKGROUND:Emotional intelligence (EI) is understanding one's own feeling and able to handle those feelings without disturbing themselves. Medical schools are stressful and the ability to manage stress is a major factor of success for these students. The current study contributes further insight to body of research in EI as it relates to students' stress in education, especially among dental undergraduates of Delhi.MATERIALS AND METHODS:A cross-sectional, convenient sampling-based survey was conducted among 323 dental undergraduates from all the 3 dental Institutions across Delhi. The Schutte Emotional Intelligence and Perceived Stress scale instruments were administered to all the students of four professional years. The data analysis was done using SPSS V.17 and various statistical tests were used to determine significant difference.RESULTS:No significant differences were found among gender as well as among professional groups for EI. There was a significant difference (0.008) among gender with respect to perceived stress. Correlation analysis showed an inverse relationship between EI and PS (r = -0.227) which was found to be statistically significant.CONCLUSION:Training in dental education could be quite stressful due to their time-bound work, but regular student performance assessment and associated factors would allow understanding student behavior in handling situations.HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE:Yadav V, Mohanty V, Balappanavar AY, et al. Emotional Intelligence and Perceived Stress among Dental Undergraduates in Delhi. Int J Clin Pediatr Dent 2020;13(4):344-347.

Abstract Objectives To estimate the pooled prevalence estimates of the malocclusion among child and adolescent population of India. Contents A comprehensive electronic search was carried to find studies related to assessing malocclusion in Indian children and adolescent population. Indices and classifications considered for pooled analysis were Dental Aesthetic Index, Index of Orthodontic Treatment Needs, Angles classification and terminal plane relationship of primary secondary molars. An eligibility criterion was prepared and quality assessment was done for all the eligible studies. Initial search produced 1090 titles. After removal of duplicates, 850 records were left for further screening. Eighty one articles were found eligible for full text reading. Finally 60 studies were included in this meta-analysis. Pooled prevalence was used to estimate overall effect, with 95% confidence intervals (CI). Statistical difference between the two genders was calculated using chi square test. Summary and outlook The high prevalence of malocclusion is a public health problem around the world. The current status of burden of malocclusion among Indian children and adolescents is not known. Results of this pooled analysis showed that prevalence of malocclusion among Indian children and adolescents has increased since the last national oral health survey. Prevalence of malocclusion ranged from 28.4% (CI 25.02, 31.9) to 66.7% (CI 50.7, 81.06) depending on the type of index or classification used for recording. Boys recorded higher cumulative prevalence than girls. These findings can be utilized by oral health policy makers to draft measures required for reducing this burden of malocclusion.

Background: Measurement of malocclusion as a public health problem is extremely difficult since individual perceptions of malocclusion differs widely.Hence, planning orthodontic treatment within a public system requires information regarding aesthetic perception, their need and demand for orthodontic treatment. Materials and Methods:The study assessed perception of dental attractiveness along with the need and demand for orthodontic treatment amongst Indian school children belonging to low socio-economic status.Study was conducted in North zone of Bangalore city; India involving 1010 children (460 boys and 550 girls) aged 12-15 years 'government high schools.Pre-structured questionnaire in English language was administered including demographic characteristics, awareness of children's own occlusions along with the visual perceptions of malocclusion comprising of two questions related to 10 standard intra-oral IOTN (Index of Orthodontic and Treatment Need) frontal photographs on which the subjects had to give an opinion about attractiveness.Clinical examination was also done using DAI (Dental Aesthetic Index) to assess severity of malocclusion along with its corresponding treatment need for the subjects.Results: Statistically significant difference was obtained between the subjective perception of occlusion amongst boys and girls.A negative although insignificant correlation was also observed between dental aesthetic index and the subjective perception of malocclusion for children belonging to low socio-economic status. Conclusion:Significant proportions of the children belonging to low socio-economic status were unaware and viewed their dental appearance as pleasant.Thus, there is a residual unmet need for orthodontic treatment among a majority of Indian children.

The Health sector is undergoing dramatic revolution by incorporating the utilization of computers and telecommunications. Its Implications in hospitals and among physicians have gained attention. However, its impact on dentistry is less widely reported. Teledentistry can improve access to dental care as well can be used as a tool for dental education.

Article 6 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “that everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before law”. Therefore, every citizen of a member State of the United Nations has a right to possess his personal identity. Age is one of the key parameters to establish identity of an individual. For age estimation, among the various parameters, dental examination also provides useful information. Hence, dental age assessment (DAA) is an important task for all dentists to perform and more so after the recent amendments in the provisions related to age assessment under Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act (JJA) in this country (India). However, like other parameters, DAA has its limitations. This issue has been examined in light of the various court judgments on of this aspect of practice of forensic dentistry after reviewing majority of the methods used for DAA available in the literature and recommendations have been made for appropriate methods that can be used in different age groups and scenario.

Introduction: An important objective of education is to improve clinical competence and hence confidence of students. Ample evidence on effectiveness of medical outreach programs is available but data pertaining to effectiveness of dental outreach, especially from developing countries, are still limited. The present study was undertaken to assess effectiveness of outreach placements on clinical confidence and communication skills of Indian dental students. Methods: A non-randomized trial was conducted in three randomly selected dental colleges of Bangalore city, India, amongst 89 students pursuing internship programs. Subjects were put into two groups: outreach (study group) and dental school based only (control group). A pre-tested, self-administered questionnaire was used to evaluate the change in clinical confidence and communication skills of both groups from baseline and after 3 months of follow-up via global self-assessment test, then-test and transition judgment. Outcome measures were analysed using t-test. Results: Global assessment revealed outreach group confidence level was higher in comparison to dental school based group only (4.37 +/- 0.49 vs 4.04 +/- 0.21, p<0.001), while using then-test their baseline confidence was observed to be lower (3.42 +/- 0.75 vs 3.72 +/- 0.72, p=0.04). Transition judgement rated an increase in their confidence significantly higher than the dental school based group only (4.24 +/- 0.91 vs 2.54 +/- 0.66, p<0.001). The outreach group rated increase in communication skills to be higher for the transition judgement. Conclusions: The present trial supports the concept of outreach programs to be incorporated in the existing dental curricula in order to supplement the traditional school-based dental education to achieve an overall professionally trained dentist.

Objectives: Tobacco use is among the most significant public health issues faced by the world today. It is estimated that approximately 5500 adolescents start using tobacco every day in India, adding to the four million youths aged <15 years who are already regular users. School-based smoking prevention programmes have been shown to increase knowledge about the negative effects of tobacco and prevent tobacco use, but the majority of evidence on effectiveness comes from Western countries. This study investigated the impact of a school-based short-term educational intervention regarding tobacco use on adolescents' knowledge, attitudes, intentions and behaviours (KAIB) in Bangalore, India. Study design: An intervention trial was conducted among 720 adolescents aged 15-16 years in Bangalore, India.Methods: Educational interventions were imparted to all study subjects in a phased manner, along with two interactive sessions held six months apart. The impact of the programme was measured using questionnaires administered before the first intervention (pre-intervention) and after the second intervention (post-intervention).Results: Mean (+/- standard deviation) pre-intervention KAIB scores of the subjects were 5.9 +/- 1.87 (knowledge), 23.6 +/- 3.15 (attitude) and 18.9 +/- 3.27 (practice), which improved to 7.8 +/- 2.01, 26.7 +/- 2.43 and 12.3 +/- 2.52, respectively, postintervention. The differences in mean KAIB scores were significant (P < 0.0001, df = 1400), suggesting that the intervention had a major positive impact.Conclusion: School-based short-term educational intervention programmes are effective for preventing and reducing tobacco use among Indian adolescents. (C) 2014 The Royal Society for Public Health. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.