Knowledge and awareness about isolation and incubation of Covid 19 among dental students- A survey

Subaraman M1, Keerthi Sasanka L*2, Gayathri R3, Dhanraj Ganapathy2 1Saveetha Dental College, Saveetha Institution of Medical and Technical Sciences, Saveetha University, Chennai – 600077, Tamil Nadu, India 2Department of Prosthodontics, Saveetha Dental College, Saveetha Institution of Medical and Technical Sciences, Saveetha University, Chennai – 600077, Tamil Nadu, India 3Department of Biochemistry, Saveetha Dental College, Saveetha Institution of Medical and Technical Sciences, Saveetha University, Chennai – 600077, Tamil Nadu, India


INTRODUCTION
The World Health Organization (WHO) states that viral diseases have emerged continuously and stands as the greatest public health issue. For the past two decades, there have been epidemics which include viral infections like H1N1 in luenza (2009), the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) (2002) have been recorded and the most recent epidemic was the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) was irst identi ied in Saudi Arabia in 2012 following the pandemic COVID19. At the initial diagnosis, the novel coronavirus was called 2019-nCoV which was later renamed by a group of experts in International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) as SARS-CoV-2 virus because it is similar to the virus that caused SARS (SARS-CoVs). One among the main pathogens that target the human respiratory system was Coronavirus. The past coronaviruses outbreaks comprise the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)-CoV and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-CoV which have been a great public health threat (Rothan and Byrareddy, 2020). The irst diagnosis of this kind of pneumonia was seen in a group of people with an unknown etiology (Bogoch et al., 2020;Lu, 2020). The reports revealed the onset of a Coronavirus outbreak has no estimate of a reproduction number in the 2019 and emerged as Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19, named by WHO on Feb 11, 2020) , and it was presumed that most of the patients were infected in that hospital, likely due to nosocomial infection and it was concluded that the COVID-19 is doest spread very fast (spread by one patient too many others).
A total of 571 cases were reported in 2019 with the new coronavirus  in 25 provinces (districts and cities) within China, and by January 22, 2020, . This virus transmission from one human to another was irst detected by the US health sector on January 30, 2020, with an estimated incubation period of about 5.2 days . The onset of the symptoms ranged in most of the infected people from 6 to 41 days, with a median of 14 days. This is also dependent on the age and status of the patient's immune system. The onset of the symptoms was shorter among people who are > 70-years old when compared with under the age group below 70 years . The infection starts with more common symptoms like fever, cough and fatigue, and also include symptoms like sputum production, headache, haemoptysis, diarrhoea, dyspnoea, and lymphopenia . The important pathogenesis of COVID-19 infection was due to a virus which targets the respiratory system causing severe pneumonia, and also leads to cardiac disorders and dysfunction (Huang et al., 2020). There is importance in understanding the facts that there are similarities with the symptoms of the COVID-19 infection and the other betacoronavirus which develops with fever, dry cough, dyspnea, and bilateral ground-glass opacities on chest CT scans. The symptoms of COVID-19 are associated with an increasing number and rate of fatalities, specially in the immune-compromised people. The genetic analysis of the virus was done reporting that the genomic sequence of COVID-19 tested with the bat-derived severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) has a close 88% identical genomic sequences (Wan et al., 2020), and later con irmed that the Person-to-person transmission via direct contact or through droplets by coughing or sneezing from an infected person (Carlos et al., 2020). As the human transmission of COVID-19 is proved, the effective way to control the spread was done with the isolation of the patients with the infection and were treated with the available symptomatic treatments till date, as there are no speci ic medication or vaccines against the COVID-19 infections. The capability for these viruses to be a pandemic worldwide is considered as the highest health risk and the WHO stated that the COVID-19 a "very high" level pandemic infection. There have been several different types of research being done all over the world, previously our department has published extensive research on various aspects of prosthetic dentistry such as advances studies (Venugopalan et al., 2014;Vijayalakshmi and Ganapathy, 2016), in-vitro studies Ashok et al. (2014); Duraisamy et al. (2019); Jyothi et al. (2017), analysis based study (Basha et al., 2018;Jain et al., 2017), study of effects of various products (Ajay et al., 2017;Ganapathy et al., 2016Ganapathy et al., , 2017 review based studies (Ariga et al., 2018;Kannan and Venugopalan, 2018;Selvan and Ganapathy, 2016) survey researches (Ashok and Suvitha, 2016), this vast research experience has inspired us to research about Knowledge and awareness about isolation and incubation of COVID 19. The aim of the study is to study the Knowledge and awareness about isolation and incubation of COVID 19 (Subasree et al., 2016).

MATERIALS AND METHODS
A survey conducted with self.A prepared questionnaire comprising 15 questions. With a sample of 100 dental students. The questionnaire was prepared with questions composing isolation and incubation o COVID 19. These questions help to determine perception on COVID 19 and that help to depict their knowledge and awareness on this topic steps like selecting survey participants randomly, ixing restrictions over the particular population, elimination of irrelevant questions been asked to participants were taken a few measures to prevent sampling bias in the survey. The response recorded using the online platform "Google forms" was analysed using the statistical software SPSS version 2.0 chart analysis was carried out with the responses recorded in the software and the result was represented using the pie chart.        Figure 1 shows the percentage of the knowledge among participants about the quarantine and its need 95.5% aware about what does a quarantine mean. Figure 2 shows the percentage of the awareness among participants about the pandemic disease,74.8% aware about what does about the pandemic disease,25.2% unaware about the pandemic disease. Figure 3 shows the knowledge among participants about the rate of spread of disease, 94.6% aware about the infection spread. Figure 4 shows the awareness among participants about the transmission of the virus, 96.4% aware that transmission of the virus will be from human to human, Figure 5 shows the knowledge among participants about the incubation period of the virus, 82.9% aware about the incubation period of the virus,17.1% unaware about the incubation period of the virus, Figure 6 shows the awareness among participants about the social distancing habit 96.4%aware of the social distancing habit. Figure 7 shows the frequency of handwashing habit among the participants; 31.5% frequently wash their hands and 68.5% does not wash hand frequently. Figure 8 shows the awareness among participants about the respiratory illness associated with COVID19 91.9% aware that the respiratory illness associated with COVID19,8.1% unaware of the respiratory illness associated with COVID19. Figure 9 shows the usage level of PPE. Out of 100 participants, 72.1% were aware and used the PPE, and 27.9% were unaware of any PPE. Figure 10 shows on the awareness of the symptoms of COVID19 92.8 % aware about the symptoms of COVID 19, 7.2% unaware about those symptoms. Figure 11 Depicts the awareness on age as a risk for COVID19, 95.5% are aware that older people are at more risk due to COVID19 infection. Figure 12 shows the awareness on self-quarantine as a need for controlling COVID19 93.7% aware selfquarantine as a need for controlling COVID19. Figure 13 show the correlation between gender and covid19 incubation time awareness. Out of 100 participants, 65 male participants were aware and 20 females were aware of the incubation time for COVID 19, the P-value was 0.00(<0.05) and it was statistically signi icant that majority of the males are more aware about the Covid19 incubation time awareness. Figure 14 show the correlation between gender and covid19 person to person transmission awareness. Out of 100 participants, 65 male participants were aware and 20 females were aware of the incubation time for COVID 19, the P-value was 0.929 (>0.05) and it was statistically not signi icant. Figure 15 show the correlation between gender and rate spread of this infection. Out of 100 participants, 65 male participants were aware and 20 females were aware of the rate of spread of this infection, the P-value was 0.899 (>0.05) and it was statistically not signi icant. Figure 16 shows that the correlation between gender and awareness on covid19 pandemic. Out of 100 participants, 19 male participants and 08 female participants are aware that cOVID 19 infections have been announced as a pandemic, the P-value was 0.382 (>0.05) and it was statistically not signi icant. Figure 17 show the correlation between gender and awareness of symptoms of covid19, the P-value was 0.655 (>0.05) and it was statistically not signi icant.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The responses are collected from the data and were analysed based on perception and awareness about COVID19 incubation and isolation period. The total respondents are 111. The responses were half mixed about the addiction. The responses are positive only. From results, when asked about, the awareness of COVID 19 100% responses were yes. It showed the participants' concern about COVID19 a similar response was seen in a previous study by Balkhy et al. in 2010 where the awareness of the swine in luenza among the Saudi public was high (Balkhy et al., 2010). When the population is asked about, are they aware of the person to person transmission (Figure 4) 96.4% were aware? This result strengthens the previous study conducted about that topic (Saxena, 2020). Where the author explains the pathological nature of COVID19, when they are asked about do you use PPE (Figure 10).27.9% were used PPE. This result was correlated with the previous study (Modi et al., 2020), where 45.4% were aware of the application of mask respirator. When they are questioned about the incubation time of COVID 19 ( Figure 6). 82% of participants were aware. This population is also aware that older people are more prone to COVID 19 95.5% ( Figure 13). This will correlate with the previous literature (Shah and Farrow, 2020).

CONCLUSIONS
Within the limits of the present study, awareness and knowledge among the participants about the COVID 19's isolation and the incubation period was analysed and can be concluded that majority of the population possesses adequate level of awareness about the pandemic outbreak COVID 19's, the need and importance of isolation and also about the incubation period of the coronavirus.