Purpose/Objectives The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic arguably represents the worst public health crisis of the 21st century. However, no empirical study currently exists in the literature that examines the impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on dental education. This study evaluated the impact of COVID‐19 on dental education and dental students’ experience. Methods An anonymous online survey was administrated to professional dental students that focused on their experiences related to COVID‐19. The survey included questions about student demographics, protocols for school reopening and student perceptions of institutional responses, student concerns, and psychological impacts. Results Among the 145 respondents, 92.4% were pre‐doctoral dental students and 7.6% were orthodontic residents; 48.2% were female and 12.6% students lived alone during the school closure due to the pandemic. Students’ age ranged from 23 to 39 years. Younger students expressed more concerns about their emotional health (P = 0.01). In terms of the school's overall response to COVID‐19, 73.1% students thought it was effective. The majority (83%) of students believed that social distancing in school can minimize the development of COVID‐19. In general, students felt that clinical education suffered after transitioning to online but responded more positively about adjustments to other online curricular components. Conclusions The COVID‐19 pandemic significantly impacted dental education. Our findings indicate that students are experiencing increased levels of stress and feel their clinical education has suffered. Most students appear comfortable with technology adaptations for didactic curriculum and favor masks, social distancing, and liberal use of sanitizers.

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Objective Human papillomavirus (HPV) infects millions of men and women annually and is a substantial contributing factor in many cancers including oral, penile, anal, and cervical. Vaccination can reduce risk but adherence nationwide and, particularly in highly religious states, is suboptimal. Religious principles of abstinence before marriage and total fidelity following marriage may create a belief of protection through adherence to religious guidelines. However, while one partner may remain monogamous, one cannot be assured of their partner's behavior both before and after marriage. These misconceptions may create a barrier to religious youth's adherence to vaccine recommendations. Methods We sampled single young adults, age 18 to 25 years, from a Christian university classified as highly religious and a university not categorized as highly religious. Results Highly religious young adults demonstrated low knowledge of HPV and HPV vaccination. High religious beliefs were associated with lower HPV vaccination adherence. Conclusions Understanding the role religious beliefs have on vaccine adherence can help in the creation of campaigns that specifically address these issues. Campaigns to increase vaccination should address misconceptions of religious youth's feelings of imperviousness to sexually transmitted diseases.

Background Social relationships, particularly marriage, have been shown to ameliorate the potentially pathogenic impact of stressful events but prior research has been mostly aimed at downstream effects, with less research on real-time reactivity. Pupillometry is an innovative procedure that allows us to see the effects of acute stress in real time. The muscles that control pupil size are linked to the autonomic nervous system, so that when stressed, the pupils dilate; this occurs within 200ms. This quick response allows us to see the immediate effects of acute stress on the autonomic nervous system (ANS), and the real-time effects of social support in buffering stress. Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the dampening effects of received social support on the ANS’s pupillary response. Methods Eighty individuals (40 couples) were randomly assigned to either a spousal support (i.e., spouse hand-holding) or non-support condition (i.e., alone) and administered a Stroop task while pupil dilation was measured. Results The Stroop task elicited a stress reaction in terms of pupil dilation in response to the incongruent task trials. Participants in the support condition showed accelerated habituation to the stress task ( p < .001), and less pupil reactivity ( p < .001) providing evidence for buffering effects of social support via spousal presence and hand-holding. Conclusions These results reveal the speed at which stress-buffering occurs, suggesting that pupillometry could be a good method to address the immediate dampening effects of social support.

The shared social context created in a marriage may be important in motivating engagement in health behaviors, but spousal influence may not be uniformly applied. Our goal was to examine how spouses discuss health behaviors relevant for colorectal cancer (CRC) risk-reduction to better understand how spouses exert or fail to exert influence. In this pilot study, first degree relatives of CRC patients and their spouses completed demographic and self-reported health questionnaires. After a genetic counseling session regarding risk and risk reduction, couples engaged in a semi-structured discussion task to discuss lifestyle choices they currently undertake or could undertake to reduce risk. Demographic and health data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Using a directed content analysis based on the transtheoretical model of behavior change, we coded discussion transcripts for depth and direction of talk for seven behavioral CRC risk factors. Spouses engaged in several strategies to reduce their risk for CRC, and problem-solved together to increase these preventative efforts. All couples mentioned diet and exercise as important factors in CRC risk; however, other risk factors received less attention. Despite evidence of support and encouragement, spouses ignored, minimized, or negated the importance of some health behaviors. Spousal influence could be an important tool to improve participation in health behaviors, but more guidance may be necessary to hold couples accountable to evidence-based guidelines to reduce risk. Health care providers should address couples as a unit to assess and address health behaviors.