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. 2020 Dec;31(12):1253-1260.
doi: 10.1111/clr.13676. Epub 2020 Oct 30.

Dental care during COVID-19 pandemic: Survey of experts' opinion

Kathrin Becker  1   2 , Giulia Brunello  3 , Katarzyna Gurzawska-Comis  4 , Jürgen Becker  5 , Stefano Sivolella  3 , Frank Schwarz  2 , Björn Klinge  6   7
Affiliations

Dental care during COVID-19 pandemic: Survey of experts' opinion

Kathrin Becker et al. Clin Oral Implants Res. 2020 Dec.

Abstract

Objectives: The current COVID-19 outbreak in conjunction with the need to provide safe dental treatments and the limited knowledge on the efficacy of protective measures has posed dentists into a challenging situation. Therefore, the present article aimed at collecting experiences and recommendations of frontline clinical experts on critical aspects of dental treatment provision during pandemic.

Material & methods: From a total of 32 European countries, one leading academic expert in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery or Oral Surgery per country was asked to participate in an anonymous online 10-item survey on COVID-19 covering the topics of safety of dental settings, personal protective equipment (PPE), and patient-related measures to reduce transmission risk. Data collection took place from April 12th to May 22nd, 2020.

Results: A total of 27 experts from different European countries completed the survey. The transmission risk of SARS-CoV-2 in dental settings for aerosol-generating procedures was considered high by all experts except two. For aerosol-free and aerosol-generating procedures, more than 80% of the experts recommended face protection and caps for every single treatment. For aerosol-generating procedures, additional measures (FFP2/FFP3 masks and gowns) were suggested by the vast majority of the experts. To reduce transmission risk, all experts recommended limiting aerosol-generating procedures and reducing the number of patients in waiting areas as well as hand hygiene for the patients.

Conclusion: The limitation of aerosol-generating procedures along with the usage of adequate personal protection equipment was considered to be crucial to protect dental healthcare providers and patients, thus reducing the transmission risk of COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID-19; coronavirus; expert opinion; pandemic; patient triage; personal protective equipment.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest related to this study.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Map of European countries whose experts were contacted: in red the countries of the responders (Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and UK) and in yellow the countries of experts who did not reply to the survey (Bulgaria, France, Hungary, Latvia and Slovakia). (The original map was retrieved from openstreetmap.org (Open Database License))
Figure 2
Figure 2
Relevance scoring for the use of different measures to decrease transmission risk of COVID‐19 in dental settings
Figure 3
Figure 3
Relevance of applied patient‐related measures to decrease transmission risk of COVID‐19 in dental settings
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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