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
Review
. 2024 Jun 6:2024:6611105.
doi: 10.1155/2024/6611105. eCollection 2024.

Critical Evaluation of Global Infection Prevention and Control Guidelines for Dentistry Published during the First 2 Years of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Khlood Alkurdi  1   2 , Rowaina Mansouri  1   3 , Aseel Ismail  1   3 , Noha Seoudi  1   4   5
Affiliations
Review

Critical Evaluation of Global Infection Prevention and Control Guidelines for Dentistry Published during the First 2 Years of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Khlood Alkurdi et al. Int J Dent. .

Abstract

Objectives: The outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) encouraged immediate actions by governments and healthcare associations across the world to flatten the curve and prevent health systems from being overburdened. As dentistry comprises aerosol-generating procedures (AGPs), which could increase the risk of infection, various guidelines were issued for dental services which focused on infection prevention and control (IPC) measures for COVID-19. This systematic review focuses on dental IPC guidelines, with the aim of comparing these guidelines against a gold standard.

Method: The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) 2020 checklist was employed. Predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria were constructed. Information sources comprised Google Scholar, PubMed, and a manual search from December 2019 to December 2021. The Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation (AGREE II) instrument was used. Consensus scoring was applied for all guidelines.

Results: A total 61 guidelines were included in the review. The UK national guideline was used as a gold standard as it ranked the highest AGREE score (75 out of 84) and thus was established for comparison with each of the included guidelines. Overall, 40% of the included guidelines had a high consensus score in relation to the UK national guideline.

Conclusion: This systematic review highlighted the variability in content and quality of advice given by different organizations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in their efforts to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission in dentistry. Establishing a single worldwide fast-acting dental organization would ensure that high-quality standardized guidance is available, to enhance health equality and worldwide dental clinical standards.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
PRISMA 2020 flowchart illustrating the stages of literature search and screening.
Figure 2
Figure 2
(a) AGREE II scoring for all guidelines included in this study. Guidelines are identified according to the number assigned in Table 1. (b) Consensus scoring for all guidelines included in this study.(c) Mean and SD scores for all included guidelines.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Worldometer. Coronavirus cases. 2023. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus .
    1. World Health Organization (WHO) COVID 19 Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). Global Research and Innovation Forum: Towards a Research Roadmap . World Health Organization; 2020.
    1. Lai C.-C., Shih T.-P., Ko W.-C., Tang H.-J., Hsueh P.-R. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19): the epidemic and the challenges. International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents . 2020;55(3) doi: 10.1016/j.ijantimicag.2020.105924.105924 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Shu Y., He H., Shi X., Lei Y., Li J. Coronavirus disease-2019. World Academy of Sciences Journal . 2021;3(2):p. 1. doi: 10.3892/wasj. - DOI
    1. Hoffmann M., Kleine-Weber H., Schroeder S., et al. SARS-CoV-2 cell entry depends on ACE2 and TMPRSS2 and is blocked by a clinically proven protease inhibitor. Cell . 2020;181(2):271–280.e8. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.02.052. - DOI - PMC - PubMed