Impact of COVID‐19 epidemic on live online dental continuing education

Introduction This study aimed to assess live online dental continuing education during COVID‐19 epidemic in China. Methods Twenty‐one institutions providing live online dental courses in China during COVID‐19 epidemic enrolled in this study. Their online and/or offline course provision before and during the epidemic was retrospectively inquired. If live online education was provided, the number of courses, duration and number of participants per week were further investigated. Time distributions of live online dental courses were recorded and classified as within working time and out of working time. The test period of COVID‐19 epidemic was for two weeks between 16 February and 29 February 2020. The control period of pre‐COVID‐19 epidemic was for ten weeks between 01 November 2019 and 09 January 2020. Results The percentages of offline and online courses provided by 21 dental continuing education institutions before COVID‐19 epidemic were 95.2% (20 out of 21) and 28.6% (6 out of 21), respectively. All the institutions suspended offline courses whilst providing two live online courses, on average, per week with 188 minutes duration and 7290 participants during the epidemic. The total number of online courses for 10 weeks before the epidemic was 33, and that for two weeks during the epidemic was 119. The proportion of courses provided within working time raised from 6.1% (2 out of 33) of pre‐COVID‐19 to 46.2% (55 out of 119) during COVID‐19. There were significant differences between before and during the epidemic (P