Is the effect of COVID-19 on periodontal treatment similar to that in general dental care and primary medical care? an observational study in Brazil

ABSTRACT

The present study aimed to analyze the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the rates of periodontal procedures, and provide a comparison with general dental care and primary medical care procedures carried out in the Brazilian Public Health System. The study had an ecological, retrospective design with data from 5,564 Brazilian municipalities (99.9%). A multilevel mixed-effects linear regression was used to analyze the longitudinal associations between the COVID-19 pandemic and the rate of procedures. There was a significant reduction in the number of periodontal procedures (Coef. −428.6 [95%CI −774.3/-82.9]) during the COVID-19 pandemic, although this reduction was no greater than that of medical and general dental procedures. Medical procedures witnessed the sharpest drop in procedures (Coef. −2831.5 [95%CI −3964.1/-1699.0]). A lower rate of general dental procedures was also identified during the pandemic (Coef. −2,110.6 [95%CI −3,400.8/-820.4]). The COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative effect on the rate of periodontal procedures carried out in the Brazilian Public Health System. The highest recutions were observed in general dental and medical procedures.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• coronavirus infections
• pandemic
• periodontal
• public health system

Acknowledgement

This study was conducted in a Graduate Program supported by CAPES, Brazil.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Statement of author contributions

LAC, FSC conceived the ideas, analyzed the data, collected the data and wrote the paper. LCS collected and analyzed the data. F.F.D conceived the idea and reviewed the manuscript. VPN, RVC reviewed the paper.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This study received funding from the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul - FAPERGS (PRONEX 16/2551-0000471-4), provided to the PI (FFD).