Delivery of Health Care by Spanish Dental Hygienists in Private and Public Dental Services during the COVID-19 De-Escalation Phase (June 2020): A Cross-Sectional Study
Background: The first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain posed a major challenge for Spanish dental professionals. The objective of this work is to describe the dental hygienists’ work status and employment patterns during the de-escalation phase in order to analyse the standards of knowledge, compliance with official recommendations, and dental activities both in the public health service and in the private sector. Material and Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire was answered by Spanish dental hygienists via WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram. The questionnaire was piloted before it was distributed and carried out during June 2020. Results: Here, 517 dental hygienists were surveyed…
Spanish Dentists’ Awareness, Knowledge, and Practice Regarding COVID-19: A Multiple Regression Analysis
The authors thank the Spanish Society of Epidemiology and Oral Public Health (SESPO) for expert supervision of the questionnaire; the Spanish General Council of Dentists (GCD) and the Spanish societies of dental hygienists for their rapid dissemination of the survey to their members.
Recommendations by the Spanish Society of Epidemiology and Oral Public Health (SESPO) for the healthcare adaptation of public health dental clinics in Spain during the COVID-19 pandemic
Background In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 pandemic and, a few days later, the Spanish Government declared a State of Emergency and the population lockdown. This crisis situation crisis forced deep changes in health care. At dental care level, it became necessary for both public health services and private consultations to plan changes to enable them to face this healthcare challenge. Material and methods SESPO and the General Council of Dentists of Spain (CGDE) appointed a Working Group to prepare a protocol for dental clinics after the lockdown stage. Continuing with this teamwork task, a series of recommendations addressed to public health manager…
Clinical evaluation of antiseptic mouth rinses to reduce salivary load of SARS-CoV-2
AbstractMost public health measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic are based on preventing the pathogen spread, and the use of oral antiseptics has been proposed as a strategy to reduce transmission risk. The aim of this manuscript is to test the efficacy of mouthwashes to reduce salivary viral load in vivo. This is a multi-centre, blinded, parallel-group, placebo-controlled randomised clinical trial that tests the effect of four mouthwashes (cetylpyridinium chloride, chlorhexidine, povidone-iodine and hydrogen peroxide) in SARS-CoV-2 salivary load measured by qPCR at baseline and 30, 60 and 120 min after the mouthrinse. A fifth group of patients used distilled water mouthrinse as a contr…