Pattern of oral and maxillofacial new referrals during COVID-19 lockdown

• Main Authors: Nabil, Syed, Nizar, Muhammad Aiman Mohd, Rashdi, Muhd Fazlynizam, Khoo, Szu Ching, Hassan, Muhammad Kamil, Hariri, Firdaus
• Format: Article
• Published: Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia 2021
• Subjects: R Medicine; RK Dentistry
• Online Access: http://eprints.um.edu.my/36156/; https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85123519649&doi=10.21315%2fAOS2021.16.2.10&partnerID=40&md5=0a86ecddb67dd2ea776fc31939fb16de

The study aimed to quantify the impact of lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic on new case referrals to the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (OMS) service. The researchers retrospectively reviewedall new referrals received during a government-imposed 47-day lockdown period and a similar periodpre-lockdown as a control group. The main outcome was the differences in the number of new casereferrals between the two periods. The contributing clinical and demographic factors were also explored.Appropriate bivariate statistics were computed and the level of significance was set at 0.05 for all tests.A total of 309 referrals were received during the study period. There was a reduction of new referralsdue to the lockdown from five to two cases per day. There was a statistically significant reduction ofcases referred from outpatient and emergency departments. There was also a statistically significantdifference with regard to home address distance to the centre. Medically compromised and orofacialinfection referrals were not affected by lockdown. The lockdown imposed due to the pandemic hassignificantly impacted the pattern of new OMS referrals. Referrals for orofacial infections, the medicallycompromised and inpatients were minimally affected by lockdown © Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia. 2021 This work is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).