Infection Prevention Strategies Concordance in Canadian Dental Schools During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Objective: The aim of this research was to identify variation in specific infection prevention and control (IPC) strategies across all dental schools in Canada and to evaluate the concor-dance concerning COVID-19 pandemic-related IPC strategies reported by clinic directors or IPC officers (CDs/IPCOs) and those reported by students, staff, and faculty in the schools.Method: A cross-sectional analysis within a prospective cohort study. Participants in the cohort study reported IPC strategies used in their schools during April or May 2021. Inde-pendently, CDs/IPCOs reported IPC strategies in school protocols in July 2021.Results: Of the 600 participants recruited, 332 participants who were involved in the provi-sion of in-person dental care were further analysed. Of the 16 IPC strategies investigated, only 3 were reported by CDs/IPCOs to be used at all schools, and another 8 strategies were used by 8 or 9 of 10 or by 1 of 10 schools, indicating that concordance across schools was good for 11 of 16 strategies. Agreement between study participants and the CDs/IPCOs var-ied considerably by strategy (ranging between 50% and 100%) and by school (ranging between 42.9% and 97.2%). The strategies with the highest mean agreement percentage across schools were "screening or interviewing patients before appointment for COVID-19-related symptoms" (92.7%) and "checking the temperature of the staff members at least once a day using a thermometer" (91.5%).Conclusions: The level of agreement in the use of strategies between participants working in clinics and CDs/IPCOs varied considerably by strategy and by school. Given the low COVID-19 infection rates in dental schools and the reported differences in IPC protocols, key strat-egies should be identified. During the pandemic, IPC protocols in Canadian dental schools evolved rapidly. Comparing different strategies might help develop a unified standard IPC protocol.(c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of FDI World Dental Federation. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)