Long L, Corsar K. The COVID-19 effect: number of patients presenting to The Mid Yorkshire Hospitals OMFS team with dental infections before and during The COVID-19 outbreak.
Br J Oral Maxillofac Surg 2020;
58:713-714. [PMID:
32386672 PMCID:
PMC7252185 DOI:
10.1016/j.bjoms.2020.04.030]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 32] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/22/2020] [Accepted: 04/23/2020] [Indexed: 10/28/2022]
Abstract
This paper investigates the effect of the COVID-19 outbreak and closure of dental practices on the frequency and severity of dental infections presenting in our emergency department. We compared the mean number of daily emergency department referrals for dental abscesses in the two weeks prior to and following the Chief Dental Officer's statement advising general dental practitioners to cease routine appointments, the mean number decreased from 1 to 0.37. In contrast, the severity and requirement for admission of these infections rose from 35% to 80%. This highlights the importance of the provision of local urgent dental centres during the COVID-19 outbreak in order to reduce pressure on secondary and tertiary care centres.
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