Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Dec;15(4):564-567.
doi: 10.1016/j.jds.2020.02.002. Epub 2020 Mar 16.

The impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the utilization of emergency dental services

Huaqiu Guo  1 , Yin Zhou  2 , Xiaoqiang Liu  3 , Jianguo Tan  3
Affiliations

The impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the utilization of emergency dental services

Huaqiu Guo et al. J Dent Sci. 2020 Dec.

Abstract

Background/purpose: To assess how the current COVID-19 epidemic influenced peoples' utilization of emergency dental services in Beijing, China.

Methods: The first-visit patients seeking emergency dental services before or at the beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic were retrieved. Their demographic characteristics and the reasons for visiting were recorded and analyzed.

Results: There were 2,537 patients involved in this study. Thirty-eight percent fewer patients visited the dental urgency at the beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic than before. The distribution of dental problems has changed significantly. The proportion of dental and oral infection raised from 51.0% of pre-COVID-19 to 71.9% during COVID-19, and dental trauma decreased from 14.2% to 10.5%. Meanwhile, the non-urgency cases reduced to three-tenths of pre-COVID-19.

Conclusion: Within the limitation of this study, the COVID-19 epidemic had a strong influence on the utilization of emergency dental services.

Keywords: COVID-19; Dental care; Emergencies; Epidemics.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest relevant to this article.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Histogram showing the distribution of patients who utilized emergency dental service before and at the beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic (N = 2537). (A) Number of patients; (B) percentage of patients. PPL, dental pulpal or periapical lesions; CA, cellulitis or abscess; TR, trauma; OU, other urgencies; NU, non-urgencies.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

References

    1. Li Q., Guan X., Wu P. Early Transmission dynamics in Wuhan, China, of novel coronavirus–infected pneumonia. N Engl J Med. 2020;382:1199–1207. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Gorbalenya A.E. Severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus – the species and its viruses, a statement of the coronavirus study group. bioRxiv. 2020 [in press]
    1. Zhu N., Zhang D., Wang W. A novel coronavirus from patients with pneumonia in China, 2019. N Engl J Med. 2020;382:727–733. - PMC - PubMed
    1. WHO . 2020. Statement on the second meeting of the International Health Regulations (2005) Emergency Committee regarding the outbreak of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV)https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/30-01-2020-statement-on-the-second-... [Internet]
    1. Harrel S.K., Molinari J. Aerosols and splatter in dentistry: a brief review of the literature and infection control implications. J Am Dent Assoc. 2004;135:429–437. - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources