Search for urgent dental care during COVID-19 pandemic

Dental emergencies may represent a challenge to clinicians, that sometimes may even need to treat patients with COVID-19. Aim: In this sense, we aim to report our experience in an urgent dental care setting during COVID-19 pandemic, providing a profile of patients and staff involved in attendance appointments. To address that, a retrospective analysis was conducted based on charts of the Urgent Dental Care Clinic. Data obtained from patients were extracted considering the period between July 2020 and December 2020. Final data were compiled, and continuous variables were expressed as mean ± standard deviation (SD). Categorical variables were presented as n (%). Results: A total of 92 patients (39 ±16.59 years) were attended with prevalence of female. Most patients (n = 83; 94.3%) answered that they did not have any symptoms since COVID-19 outbreak in March up to 21st day prior the appointment and searched for treatment with pain as the main complaint (n = 59; 64.1%). Drug prescriptions and advice were sufficient on several occasions (n = 19; 22.4%), eliminating the need for dental procedures. Recementation and temporary restorations were the most frequent clinical choice in this cohort (n = 19; 20.7). Regarding dental staff, COVID-19 symptoms after attendance were reported only seven times (3.4%) by 5 different persons. Conclusion: All patients treated in the emergency department during the COVID-19 pandemic were asymptomatic and pain was their main complaint. Importantly, occupational transmission was not detected during the study period, which highlights effectiveness of our prevention strategies.