Impact of COVID-19 on Malaysian dental students’ physical, mental, financial and academic concerns

BACKGROUND: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has gained worldwide attention and proved to hold an impact to humankind in all aspects of life. Dental students’ performances may indirectly be affected following the preventive measures in containing the disease. This study aims to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on physical, mental, financial health and academic concern among dental students in Malaysia. METHODS: The current research implemented a cross sectional study among dental students in Malaysia. Assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on dental education was done by the distribution of a set of online survey consisting of 28 questions to dental students (n = 353) from public and private universities in Malaysia. The questionnaires include sociodemographic backgrounds and assessment on the mental health, financial health, physical health and academic concern. Kruskal Wallis test and Mann–Whitney U test were used to analyse the impact of COVID-19 to these 4 domains according to sociodemographic background. RESULTS: A total number of 353 respondents was recorded and 76.2% comprised of female. 59.7% were clinical students and 40.3% were preclinical students. Most of students were concerned about their own emotional health, financial concern, physical wellbeing, in which Year 3 students were found to be more concerned about their mental and financial health concern. CONCLUSIONS: COVID-19 pandemic had indeed significantly affected Malaysian dental students mainly due to fear of the quality of online learning and the amount of clinical skills acquired. Therefore, it is important to identify dental stressors and lessen the impact of COVID-19 to dental students.