Abstract
Aim
This was primarily to perform a retrospective analysis of 1000 emergency dental visits in order to characterize the nature of the dental emergency and the treatment provided and secondly to define a guideline for dental emergency treatment in children including pain management.
Materials and methods
A retrospective review was conducted of 1000 patients (aged 0–16 years) who visited the dental emergency service of the paediatric dental clinic at the Ghent University Hospital, Belgium over a period of 3 years. Data regarding age, gender, reason for visit, year of visit, consequent appointments and treatment provided were collected. Statistical analysis was carried out using descriptive statistics (frequency distribution) and Chi-square test, with significance level set as P < 0.05.
Results
The number of patients visiting with a dental emergency increased annually. Approximately half (50.2%) of all paediatric dental emergency consultations were based on pain due to caries and its consequences. More than a quartile (26.7%) of emergency patients suffered from dental trauma of either primar or permanent teeth. The majority (96.7%) of the patients reported pain, 16.3% of the patients did not necessarily need immediate attention.
Conclusion
Dental emergencies in a university hospital based setting were predominantly related to caries and trauma. A precise definition of dental emergencies is recommended in order to prevent abuse of paediatric emergency services.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Ms. Joni Mattelaer for her help in obtaining and extracting patient data from hard copy files.
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All procedures performed in the present study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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Martens, L.C., Rajasekharan, S., Jacquet, W. et al. Paediatric dental emergencies: a retrospective study and a proposal for definition and guidelines including pain management. Eur Arch Paediatr Dent 19, 245–253 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40368-018-0353-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40368-018-0353-9