The Effect of Quarantine During COVID-19 Pandemic on The Oral Health Habits of The Syrian Community

Abstract

Introduction: Corona Virus has appeared in the end of 2019; it belongs to a large family of viruses that can cause respiratory infections. Due to its rapid and ease spread it has become a pandemic in almost the whole world, which necessitated the imposition of quarantine procedures in order to reduce the speed of spread and the number of deaths, but these procedures may cause many effects on people, one of the most important aspects that can be affected is oral health care. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of quarantine procedures on oral health habits of the Syrian community.Materials and methods: A survey was made with Google forums then published on Facebook from 4-16-2020 until 11-5-2020. The number of people corresponding to the study criteria reached 1033, the effect of quarantine procedures on changing oral health habits, number of times of brushing and the time of brushing were studied.Results: Quarantine led to a change in oral health habits in 57.4% of the sample, females were significantly more affected by changing habits during quarantine (P = 0.020), number of brushing times was not clearly affected and it was twice daily (49.4% Before quarantine, 42.1% after quarantine) as there was no statistically significant difference between the two stages in terms of the number of brushing times.Conclusion: This study was one of the first studies that showed the effect of home quarantine on the oral habits of members of the Syrian community. Home quarantine did not significantly affect the change in the oral health habits of Syrians.