Clinico-statistical study regarding the reasons for dental emergency presentations in a pedodontics clinic

Abstract

Aim. To evaluate the reasons for seeking dental care for children and teenagers attending an emergency clinic and the proportion of single visits treatments. Material and methods. A retrospective study was made on 500 children and teenagers (252 girls), mean age 13.91±2.3 years, who attended the emergency office from the Paedodontics Department of "Carol Davila" University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Bucharest, during 2017-2019. Information regarding age/gender/diagnosis and treatment were analyzed. Statistical analysis included descriptive statistics and Pearson's Chi-square test with the significance level set as p < 0.05. Results. For 401 children (80.2%), pain was the main reason for the presentation in an emergency visit. 11% came for a specialist consultation and the others 8.8% because of a dental trauma. Nearly 79% of the visits were due to caries: 39% simple decays and 40% complicated caries. Of the decayed teeth, 62.8% were on the posterior teeth and 37.2% on the anterior permanent teeth. Only 15.4% needed one single visit treatment, the others needed a complex pulp therapy. Conclusions. Pain caused by dental decay was the most frequent chief complaint. A lot of children were brought to the dentist with complaints that had started long time before, for which over-the-counter medications had been used. Most children had complicated caries which requires multiple treatment sessions.