Dental care during the COVID-19 pandemic: an integrative review

Abstract

Objective: The study and enactment of dental preventive measures, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, are necessary to prevent cross-infections between professionals and patients. The objective of this integrative review was to identify the COVID-19 preventive practices in dentistry. Methods: The electronic search was conducted on these databases: Pubmed / Medline, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Scopus, LILACS and Scielo, using the following descriptors and / or words: “Coronavirus disease 2019”; “Coronavirus 2019”; “Covid-19”; “2019-ncov”; “Sars-cov2”; “Dental practice”; “Dental care”; “Dentistry”; “Dental medicine” and “Oral medicine”. PRISMA was used as a reference for designing it. Results: A total of 11 articles were included and the preventive measures against COVID-19 were based on guidelines from health agencies and consisted of: perform only emergency treatments; reschedule patients with suspected disease; hand washing; disinfection of surfaces with 70% alcohol; testing dental professionals for the disease; use the N95 mask; disposable lab coats, and face shields. Children, in addition to the measures mentioned above, should routinely drink a lot of water and be provided with healthy diets. No study has evaluated the efficacy and effectiveness of these measures. There is a lack of scientific evidence on the preventive protocols adopted against COVID-19 in dentistry since preventive measures are recommended by health agencies. Conclusion: Consequently, professionals are recommended to follow the guidelines by these organizations until effective and efficient preventive protocols tailored to dentistry are established.