Teledentistry for Pediatric Dental Emergency: Comparison Between Experienced and Novice Users

During the COVID-19 pandemic, teledentistry was often employed for pediatric emergency treatments. Dental students acted as the first health providers using teledentistry under the supervision of faculties in most hospital-based or university-based medical centers during the lockdown period. The aims of this study were to assess the quality of using teledentistry among general dentists (GDs) and dental students (DSs) for managing pediatric dental emergencies.

In total, 60 DSs and 85 GDs were recruited in this study. Each participant was assigned to one of five teledentistry emergency scenarios in pediatric dentistry using a stratified random assignment method. Teledentistry with five emergency scenario simulations was used to evaluate the quality of diagnosis (QD) and treatment (QT) and the detailed information (DI) among all participants. A post-visit survey collected demographic data, usability, confidence in diagnosis (CD), and confidence in treatment recommendation (CT). Descriptive and inferential statistics data were analyzed. The significance level was set as p < 0.05.

Overall, the study showed that GDs and DSs can use teledentistry to provide good quality of diagnosis (74.5%) and treatment recommendations (77.2%). When encountering pediatric dental emergency scenarios, GDs scored significantly higher (p < 0.001) than DSs regarding QD, QT, CD, and CT. Significant differences were noted in QD (p < 0.001), QT (p < 0.001), CD (p = 0.045), and DI (p = 0.042) when the subjects encountered five different scenarios. Significant correlations were noted between the amount of detailed information subjects obtained with the quality of diagnosis and treatment recommendation. Confidence in diagnosis is significantly correlated to the quality of diagnosis (p = 0.034) and treatment recommendation (p = 0.042). However, the confidence in treatment recommendation is not correlated with either QD or QT. Both GDs and DSs hold positive attitudes toward the usability of teledentistry.

Teledentistry is effective for diagnosing and managing pediatric dental emergencies. Experienced users provided a better quality of visit compared to novice users, so dental students should be supervised when performing a teledentistry visit.