Dental Care in the Arab Countries During the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Infodemiological Study

Abstract

Background: Twitter is a powerful platform which could be used to reflect on the demand and supply of dental services during a pandemic. The aim of this study was to examine the nature and dissemination of COVID-19 information related to dentistry on Twitter platform Arabic database during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methodology: One hundred and fifty independent searches with a combination of keywords for both COVID-19 and dentistry from a preselected Arabic keyword were carried out for the period from the 2nd of March (first confirmed cases of COVID-19) to the 6th of July 2020. Tweets were filtered to remove duplicate and unrelated tweets. The suitable tweets were 1,150. After calibration, two examiners coded the tweets following two main themes: COVID-19 and oral health-related information. Tweets were then compared with COVID-19 daily events in the Arab countries as reported by the World Health Organization (WHO). Descriptive analysis was performed to present the overview of the findings using Microsoft Excel.Results: The most retweeted information was the help with urgent consultation or emergency dental treatment during COVID-19 tweeted by a dentist. There were 673 retweets and 1,116 likes of this tweet. The most common tweets related to oral health were needs of dental treatment (n=462, 39.5%) of which, toothaches or wisdom tooth problems constituted 48% of the related tweets. Conclusion:Based on the results of this study, it is obvious that social media users reacted to the COVID-19 threat to dental practices. Twitter as one of the social media platforms served as a connection between dental health professionals and patients.

The pattern and use of Twitter among dental schools in Saudi Arabia

“…The examples for the main themes with sub-categories can be seen in Table 1 . The thematic analysis of tweets was performed in a similar manner to previous studies [ 14 , 15 ].…”

“…The examples for the main themes with sub-categories can be seen in Table 1. The thematic analysis of tweets was performed in a similar manner to previous studies [14,15]. Furthermore, the tweet content was classified according to originality of the tweet whether it was original or a retweet.…”

Pattern of dental needs and advice on Twitter during the COVID-19 pandemic in Saudi Arabia

“…This emerging tendency for anxiety and depression which resulted in increased use of social media during the pandemic was also experienced globally. A number of studies reported increased online use and access to social media during the outbreak whether in China where the pandemic originated or from other parts in the world [ 2 , 9 , 15 ].…”

“…This infoveillance study was developed to assess the activity of Twitter users in Saudi Arabia regarding dental treatment needs and advice during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 comparing it with the activity in the same period in 2019. This study was performed using similar methods to those used in previous studies which assessed the use of Twitter during the COVID-19 pandemic [ 2 , 9 , 10 ]. Since this research used publicly available data that did not involve human subjects; thus, it did not require an institutional review board approval from Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam, Saudi Arabia.…”

“…Healthcare professionals across the globe have been found to use Twitter to reach out to their colleagues, patient population and others collecting real-time health data and gaining more insight on trends in healthcare. Several studies have examined the content of health-related tweets on Twitter [ 5 , 8 , 9 ].…”