SUBJECTS AND METHODS: An online questionnaire in a Google form link was circulated among the target population via various online platforms. It consisted of 14 close-ended questions assessing these students' knowledge and source of COVID-19-related information. SPSS software version 21.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) was used to compute descriptive statistics, Chi-square test, independent t-test, and ANOVA tests for comparing various variables, and a p-value<0.05 was considered statistically significant.
RESULTS: The study yielded 809 responses from dental undergraduate students from India, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, and Turkey. Dental students from Turkey reported a higher mean knowledge score of 7.91±1.34 and 7.88±0.58 for Malaysian dental students. In contrast, the lower scores were achieved by Saudi Arabia (7.36±1.22) and India (7.37±1.21) dental students, and the findings were statistically significant (p<0.05). The study population used various sources to attain information regarding COVID-19. Most respondents (63.1%) utilized information regarding COVID-19 from multiple sources rather than single sources (36.9%).
CONCLUSIONS: Reliable and validated information sources resulted in higher knowledge scores. Turkey and Malaysia dental students reported a higher mean knowledge score and the lowest for Saudi Arabia and India dental students. There is increased popularity of social media platforms as information sources.
DESIGN: PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and PLOS databases were searched up to February 2020 to identify randomised controlled trials that fulfilled the eligibility criteria. Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Critical Appraisal Tool was used for quality assessment of articles. This review was performed according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-analysis (PRISMA-P) 2015 protocol guidelines.
RESULT: The initial search retrieved 774 articles. Of these, only five articles were included in the qualitative synthesis. Two out of the five papers were further analysed for quantitative synthesis in meta-analysis. The majority of the included studies were found to be of "moderate quality". The qualitative synthesis found four probiotics that exhibited potential therapeutic effects in oral carcinogenesis, includingAcetobacter syzygii, AJ2, Lactobacillus plantarum, and Lactobacillus salivarius REN. Among them, the application of L. salivarius REN resulted in a 95 % lower risk for developing oral cancer (p