ANALYSIS OF INITIAL DENTAL CARE ENCOUNTERS OF PATIENTS RECOVERED FROM NEW CORONAVIRUS INFECTION COVID-19

Abstract

Subject. The imposed restrictions on doctor visits caused by the pandemic Covid-19 and the severe course of the new coronavirus infection have changed the structure of dental care encounters. Objective of the study is to conduct a structural and quantitative analysis of dental care encounters of patients with the previous new coronavirus infection Covid-19. Methodology. A clinical and statistical patient chart was developed for this study. The initial encounters were analyzed in the period from March 2020 to December 2021. We have studied the frequency and structure of dental disease causes in patients who had recovered from the new coronavirus infection Covid-19 depending on the peaks of the Covid-19 incidence. In addition, the age and sex structure, the presence of concomitant diseases, and indicators of the oral cavity state were studied in the main group of patients: the decay-missing-filled index, mouth hygiene index, lesions of the oral mucosa, and regional lymph nodes reaction. The obtained data were processed with the statistical program Statistica 6.0, and differences in subgroups were analyzed according to the Student's t-test: the critical significance level was taken at p ≤ 0.05 when testing statistical hypotheses. Results. This study showed the dependence of the causes, frequency, and structure on pandemic periods. The predominance of the reasons for encounters changed in different periods of the pandemic. Besides, the age structure of patients changed in some periods of the pandemic. At the same time, no dependence of medical encounters on gender composition and comorbidities was observed. Conclusion. This study showed a high level of spread of the carious process. The level of the hygiene index was initially satisfactory, but also moved towards unsatisfactory. Enlargement of lymph nodes and the spread of lesions of the oral mucosa tended to increase during 2020–2021.