Impact of COVID-19 Lockdowns on Patients Undergoing Orthodontic Treatment

Abstract

Objective: To determine the awareness of regular orthodontic follow-up visits among the patients. The secondary objective was to assess patients’ perception towards orthodontic treatment needs and their psychological status during lockdown. Study Design and Setting: This cross-sectional study was conducted at Sindh Institute of Oral Health Sciences, (JSMU) from August, 2020 to January, 2021. Methodology: The questionnaire contained 15 questions divided into 3 categories. First category was about the awareness of routine checkup among patients Q1-Q5, second was to assess the impact of lockdown on patients’ visit to orthodontist Q6-Q12 and third was to assess the psycho-social effect of lockdown Q13-Q15. Three point likert scale was applied on each question with cut off value set as 70% for the 3 categories to get positive/negative response. SPSS version 22 was used for data entry and analyzing. Percentages and frequencies were calculated for qualitative variables like age, gender and educational level. Chi-square test was applied on all the three categories keeping the p-value <0.05 as significant. Results: The study included 115 subjects comprising of 21(18.3%) males and 94(81.7%) females, aged 12-30 years with mean age 19.15±3.96. Out of 115 patients 47(40.9%) patients met the 70 % cut off criteria for category 1.Similarly, for category 2, 73(63.5%) patients met the 70% cut off value. For category 3, 7(6.1%) patients met the 70% cut off value. Statistically significant difference was found for category 1 with age, gender and educational level at p-value<0.05. Similarly, in category 3, only educational level showed statistically significant association. Conclusion: The patients were quite aware of the need to visit orthodontists for regular follow ups during their treatment. The psychological status of the patients was the prime concern of the orthodontists as they had not sought orthodontic help during this time.