Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 and Dentistry: A Summative Review of Guidelines issued by National Health Authorities

Applications and effectiveness of teledentistry in orthodontic practice during the COVID-19 restrictions

BACKGROUND

The aim of this study was to identify the areas of application for teledentistry and analyze its effectiveness in orthodontic practice during the COVID-19 pandemic.

METHODS

A total of 233 patients (159 women, 74 men) receiving orthodontic treatment were included. During the COVID-19 restriction period, patients were given teledentistry appointments. During these video conferences, remote orthodontic checkups were performed by one orthodontist, who asked the patients for photos or videos. The applications carried out during the interviews were recorded, classified, and analyzed. In addition, clinical emergency patients were identified. After the teledentistry consultations, two different questionnaires were presented to the patients, depending on their attendance at teledentistry appointments, and the results were statistically evaluated.

RESULTS

In all, 21.25% of the patients were identified as having clinical emergencies, including injury because of damage from brackets and wires; 10% of them reported bracket breakage; 17.5% were encouraged to use intermaxillary elastics; and 3.75% were in pain. However, 50% of them were found to be unproblematic. A total of 91% of the participants in the survey reported that online checkups were sufficient to understand and resolve their symptoms. However, 28% wanted to communicate with orthodontists by video call or with photos instead of meeting face to face (65.5%) when unexpected problems arose during the COVID-19 pandemic.

CONCLUSIONS

Teledentistry can be an effective method for motivating patients who are undergoing orthodontic treatments that require cooperation. It is also an effective way of understanding the patients' symptoms and reducing the risk of cross-infection by identifying patients who will require face-to-face emergency treatment during pandemics.

Influence of different personal protective equipment on children's anxiety in dental office: a randomized controlled trial

Background

A change in how a dentist looks may affect the child’s anxiety in the dental office. This study compared the effect of conventional facial PPE versus extra PPE as reusable respirators; on the preoperative child’s anxiety in the dental office.

Methods

Fifty two children were randomly allocated into 4 groups, (1) goggles + surgical mask, and (2) face shield + surgical mask versus (3) half-face respirator and (4) full-face respirator. Each child was communicated with and clinically examined by a dentist wearing the assigned PPE, and then his anxiety was assessed using CFSS-DS. Shapiro–Wilk’s test was used to analyse normality. Kruskal–Wallis test followed by Dunn’s post hoc test with Bonferroni correction test, were used to analyse non-parametric anxiety score data. Correlations between different factors and anxiety scores were analysed using Spearman’s rank-order correlation coefficient.

Results

There were no statistically significant differences in the number of anxious children in each group, boys had significantly higher scores than girls (p < 0.001) For the “Goggles and surgical mask” group and “overall”. There was no significant correlation between age and anxiety scores. Children who didn’t have a previous dental visit had statistically significant higher scores than children with previous experience for “Goggles and surgical mask”, “Face shield and surgical mask “groups and “overall”.

Conclusions

Half-face and full-face respirators have not affected the child’s preoperative anxiety in the dental office when compared to the conventionally used PPE. Overall, there is an association between gender and previous dental visits, and dental anxiety, however; there is no correlation between child’s age and dental anxiety. Dentists dealing with children should feel free to use reusable respirators, without the risk of affecting children’s anxiety in the dental office.

Trial Registration This study was registered on www.clinicaltrials.gov, ID: NCT05371561 on 12/05/2022.

A feasibility and acceptability study of using an intra-oral camera and an asynchronous tele-mentoring protocol to detect and identify oral lesions

Background

To examine the feasibility and acceptability of integrating a tele-mentoring component into the identification of oral lesions at the dental clinics of a Federally Qualified Health Center network.

Design and Methods

General Practice Residency faculty and residents completed research ethics courses and trained dentists to use intra-oral cameras at chairside to photograph oral lesions of patients at routine dental visits. These images were then uploaded into the patient electronic health records (EHRs) with attendant descriptions and an oral surgeon was notified, who reviewed the charts, placed his observations in the EHR, and communicated his findings via secure e-mail to the involved residents, who in turn contacted their patients regarding follow-up actions. Feasibility was assessed via checklists completed by provider participants and semi-structured interviews. Acceptability was assessed via brief exit interviews completed by patient participants.

Results

All 12 of the dentist participants reported that they had successfully provided the tele-mentoring intervention, and that the process (from EHR data entry to interaction with the oral surgeon over findings to patient referral) was clear and straightforward. Of 39 patient participants, most strongly agreed or agreed that the use of an intra-oral camera by their dentists helped them to better understand oral cancer screening (94.9%) and that dentists answered their questions about oral cancer and were able to provide them with resources (94.8%).

Conclusions

Findings support further implementation research into adapting tele-mentoring using intra-oral cameras for training dental residents to detect and identify oral lesions and educating patients about oral cancer across settings.