Objective: To evaluate the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on children's oral health and caregiver's attitude towards teledentistry. Material and method: A questionnaire was distributed to 583 caregivers of children aged between 3 and 10 years through electronic messages, which consisted of nine multiple choice questions divided into three parts. The first part included demographic data (age, gender, and educational level); the second part addressed the assessment of oral health of children by their caregivers during the lockdown, the reason and influence of the pandemic on the oral health of children; and the third part was related to caregiver's attitude towards healthcare system and teledentistry. Pearson's Chi-square test and Fisher's Exact test were used for analysis using SPSS (version 21.0). Result: Around 93.5% of caregivers were not satisfied with their child's oral health. Approximately 91.5% of caregivers agree that the coronavirus pandemic has negatively affected their child's oral health. Most of them think that alteration in sleep patterns is the main reason. Ninety-three percent of caregivers have been reported to utilize teledentistry during the pandemic period, but 53.2% did not know whether teledentistry could solve their child's oral healthcare problems. About 7% disagree that teledentistry can be helpful for the oral healthcare needs of children.
Conclusion:Coronavirus disease has a negative impact on children's oral health. There is a need to increase awareness about teledentistry among caregivers in Kuwait.
This study is to report both patients' and parents' orthodontic treatment expectations by utilizing a questionnaire.
Materials and Methods:A sample of 160 individuals that were equally divided into patients and parents and were asked to fill a questionnaire regarding their expectations towards orthodontic treatment before the start of any procedure. The filled questionnaires of both patients and parents were compared and statistically analysed.
Results:The results showed significant differences between patients and parents in regards to scores of the questionnaire where the parents gave significantly higher scores than the patients expressing a more like hood of the procedure (p< 0.05). Conclusion: Most of the parents had more realistic expectations about orthodontic treatment especially in regards to the orthodontic treatment duration and retention which can be attributed to past subjective and/or objective experience in orthodontic treatment.
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