The effect of COVID-19 outbreak on hospital admissions for dental infections

Abstract

Cervicofacial infections of dental origin can cause life threatening emergency and we were anticipating that the prevalence of hospital admissions for this reason between the 26 th of March 2020 until the 8 th of June 2020 that the dental practices were closed would increase. We conducted a retrospective analysis of the hospital admissions for cervicfacial infections of dental origin during this period and the results were compared with the admissions the same period last year. Surprisingly there were less admissions in 2020 compared to 2019 which can be attributed to the government guidance to ‘‘Stay at home”, “Save lives”, “Protect the NHS’’ and the treatment provided by the Urgent Dental Care Centers that reduced the pressure on the country's health care system. Proportionately more admissions in 2020 were attributed to dental abscess from mandibular teeth compared to 2019 but there was a small decrease in the incision and drainage under general anesthetic and a small increase in the length of the hospital stay in 2020.

Keywords

• COVID-19
• Cervico-facial infection
• Dental abscess
• Hospital admission
• Dental extractions
• UDCC