Evaluation of Oral Health among Young Patients during Covid 19- An Original Research

Abstract

Introduction: Dental issues in the young patients impact the families, and the health care system. Utilizing fluoride varnishes, pit and fissure restorations may prevent caries. However there may be a shift in the dental health in the COVID-19 times among the young children. Hence in present study we evaluate the oral health among young patients during COVID 19.
Methods: We compared the preventive oral health measures before and after COVID among the pediatric patients of age 1-15 years. The study was conducted by comparing the treatment like fluoride application, pit and fissure sealants before and after COVID-19. Appropriate statistical tools were applied to compare the observations keeping the significance value at 0.05.
Results: We observed that fluoride applications and the pit and fissure restorations were significantly reduced during the COVID-19. DMFT score increased but not significantly. Number of the pediatric visits for the dental treatment before and after the COVID-19 also decreased but not significantly.
Conclusions: It was observed that the pandemic has affected the dental health of the young patients. Appropriate measures be taken to improve the health of the children.
Keywords: DMFT, Dental health, young, COVID-19.