A recent study funded by the COVID-19 Immunity Task Force (CITF) reveals how COVID-19 impacted the stress and anxiety of Canadian dentists during the first year of the pandemic.
Reassuringly, it was found that overall dentists had relatively low rates of distress during the pandemic, but that a correlation existed between an increase in stress and higher COVID cases during the second and fourth waves. Surprisingly, most participants were not concerned about PPE and its efficiency. This could most likely be due to the fact that there were lower instances of COVID cases among dentists than the general population.
According to the report in the Journal of Dental Research, “Salivary cortisol was selected as a biomarker of mental stress, and 10 sets of monthly saliva samples (2,131 in total) were self-collected, sent to our laboratory in prepaid courier envelopes, and analyzed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.” Online questionnaires were also administered.
