Results.
A total of 500 students completed the questionnaire, including 297 (59.4%) women and 203 men (40.6%). The characteristics of the participants are shown in Table 1. As expected, the students self-reported that they suffered from increased stress and emotional distress. An increase in weight was observed in 48.6% of the subjects. Female students reported more “eating for coping” than male students did (68% vs. 43.8%; p<0.001).
General hygiene habits were maintained by students, with only a small group that reported a reduction in personal and dental hygiene (8% and 4% of the total population, respectively). (table 2).
We then compared students from the dentistry and dental hygiene courses to those from other medical courses (control group). A reduction in the frequency of use of floss or interdental brush during quarantine was reported in the control group (7.5% versus 21% of the total students in each group; p<0.01)
To the question “Which component is included in your toothpaste?”, there was a difference between study population and control students; a significant greater number of students from the control groups answered “don’t know” or “don’t care” (respectively: 7.5% versus 75.6%; p<0.001 and 1% versus 14.3%; p<0.001).
To the question “what type of mouthwash do you usually use?”, a great number of students from the control group answered “none” (36.6% compared to the dentistry and dental hygiene students, where only 0.5% reported not using a mouthwash; p<0.01).
Interestingly, a large number of students from the dentistry and dental hygiene courses reported a change in the quality of mouthwash with an increase in the use of chlorhexidine mouthwash during quarantine (+ 15%).
We then correlated self-perception of increase in stress among students because of COVID-19 with all variables related to general and dental hygiene, and found a small correlation between COVID-19 stress perception and reduced hygiene.