The impact of covid-19 on undergraduate dental students and the perspective of resuming face-to-face activities

Abstract

Introduction mass contamination by the new coronavirus caused enough damage for the pandemic to extend indefinitely Objective the objective of this study was to analyze the emotional factors acquired by students from a dentistry course during the COVID-19 pandemic period and the influences related to the resumption of face-to-face activities. Material and method it is an observational, cross-sectional and analytical research conducted at a public university in the state of Pará, Brazil. A research questionnaire, prepared by the authors and validated by the ethics committee of the Federal University of Pará, was applied to the academic community for a period of three months (November 2020 to January 2021). The analysis was performed using the Excel program, Kappa statistics and the Chi-squared test, whose results were presented as frequency and percentage. Result a total of 188 dental students participated in the research. The findings proved to be in accordance with the hypothesis generated by the researchers, about 19.2% had emotional crises and 3.7% increase in the lockdown period. As for the expectations for care services, there was an increase in the oppressive state of psychic crises (anxiety, stress, anger, fear), considered influential in the cognition of behavioral traits during post-pandemic care. Conclusion the study identified that the emotional changes acquired in the pandemic outbreak had a negative impact on student performance; however, depressive symptoms were expressed in graduating students.