Impact of Coronavirus disease pandemic on hypertensive and diabetic patients – knowledge, attitude, and self-reported oral health

• Autor(a) principal: Teruel, Gabriela Peres
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: Garbin, Clea Adas Saliba, Saliba, Tania Adas, Garbin, Artênio José Ísper
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Research, Society and Development
• Texto Completo: https://rsdjournal.org/index.php/rsd/article/view/27896
• topic: Hipertensos; Covid-19; Diabéticos.; Covid-19; Hipertensos; Diabéticos.; Hypertensive patients; Covid-19; Diabetic patients.

This study aimed to assess knowledge, attitude, and self-reported oral health of hypertensive and diabetic patients regarding Covid-19. It is a cross-sectional, quantitative study, with a sample of 505 hypertensive and/or diabetic patients from a city in the northwest of the state of São Paulo. A multiple choice instrument was applied on the topic. The inclusion criterion was the respondents' willingness to participate in the study. For data analysis, we employed chi-square statistics in Epi Info 7.1 and Bioestat 5.0 software. Hypertensive (n=319), diabetic patients (n=97), and patients with both comorbidities (n=89) participated in the study. Regarding knowledge, depending on the infection period, 15% of respondents answered incorrectly, 35% believed that the new coronavirus could be cured by drugs, and 36% thought it was not a severe disease. Concerning knowledge and attitude, there was an association between the perception of the disease as severe and the attitude of preventing it (p≤ 0.0001). Results on oral health showed that 9% of respondents did not schedule an appointment with the dentist due to fear of Covid-19, 5% needed urgent care, and 9% reported having some oral alteration that needed treatment. There was also an association between believing they needed dental care and not looking for treatment due to fear of Covid-19 (p≤ 0.0001). We concluded that knowledge and attitude are still faulty and there is a fear of looking for dental care even when necessary.