Impact of covid-19 pandemic on characteristics of dental emergencies and treatment services at tertiary care centre

PurposeTo categorize and compare the dental emergencies along with status of health services received in the tertiary dental health care centre during the pre covid- 19 periods and period of the complete lockdown in COVID 19 pandemic. Methods: A retrospective cross-sectional observational survey was conducted. Four different groups period were studied on patients who visited for dental emergencies at tertiary care centre. April 14 to 13 May 2020 assigned and analyzed as a test period group or group IV. The control period group i.e. group III was 14 February 2020 to 17 March, pre lockdown COVID 19 month when there was no consideration of epidemic in India. Same as periods of group II and IV, group I and II from last year 2019 were also assigned and analyzed. The tertiary care centre provision of health services during this pandemic was also inquired and evaluated. The information was recorded regarding availability of health services like non-emergency dental treatments, emergency dental services, and online professional consultation. To compare four different time period of obtained data, Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Chi square test were used. Results: The overall proportion and percentage of dental emergencies were raised. The reason for emergency visits to dental clinic were the main problem related with pulpal (46.0%) followed by abscess (16.6%), periapical lesions (15.0%), cellulitis (4.1%) or trauma (0.3%). In lockdown most of the dental emergencies 228(2 6 5) were endodontic related (86.1%) which managed mostly through ‘3A” approach (advise, analgesics and antibiotics) (60.1%) and remaining (26.0%) through extraction.