Uso de ferramentas digitais no auxílio ao atendimento odontológico em época de pandemia da COVID-19: revisão integrativa da literatura

Abstract

The pandemic of COVID-19 highlighted several challenges for the health sector, and in dentistry this was no different. Economic implications with the high cost of personal protective equipment, reduced patient attendance due to social distancing measures, increased repressed demand in public health services were some of the problems faced by dentists and oral health teams. In this horizon and in order to minimize the impacts to the oral health of the population, mechanisms have been created or better used, focusing on the use of digital tools, and among these resources we can highlight the use of Teleodontology. Tele-guidance, which is an offshoot of Tele-Dentistry, became regulated by means of resolution 226 of June 2020 issued by the Federal Council of Dentistry, in the context of the pandemic, even allowing the prescription and issuance of certificates provided that the professional has a signature with digital certification. Thus, it is necessary to understand the most commonly used tools for tele-guidance in order to improve them, in order to maintain, even in an endemic situation of COVID-19, the use of these resources that favor the coverage of oral health services and can be easily accessed by patients and professionals. The aim of this paper is to identify the main teleorientation resources possible for dental care in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. An integrative literature review was conducted in the Pubmed and Google Scholar databases, using as search terms "technology", "dental care" and "COVID-19", and after applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria 15 articles were selected for qualitative analysis, in which it was realized that the telephone and WhatsApp are still the most used resources for communication between professionals and patients in the context of the pandemic and that the versatility of WhatsApp can improve even the way of approaching patients in contexts outside the pandemic. Tele-dontology became a solution for the continuity of the dental practice during the pandemic period and tends to be a method that will continue to be used even after the end of this period. More studies are needed on this theme, especially regarding the maintenance of oral health care, addressing the adherence of patients to the use of digital tools and the economic impact of the use of these tools for the dental office, from the point of view of customer loyalty.