The COVID-19 pandemic affected the daily lives of the global population, not only in terms of social interaction but also in terms of access to medical and dental care. Non-urgent dental treatments could not be continued during the lockdown and only a small number of dental centres addressed patients with dental emergencies. The aim of this study was to evaluate the socio-demographic characteristics (age, gender, and living environment) of the individuals that accessed the dental emergency centre in Oradea (North-West Romania) and the main causes for accessing the dental emergency service among the population of Oradea (North-West Romania), during the COVID-19 lockdown, between March and May 2020 and, furthermore, to compare the results obtained in the lockdown timeframe (March-May 2020), with the results obtained in the corresponding timeframe in the pre-lockdown year (March-May 2019) and post-lockdown year (March-May 2021). The retrospective study was carried out by analysing the medical records of the patients who were treated in the dental emergency service of the Oradea County Emergency Clinical Hospital in the following periods: March-May 2019, March-May 2020, and March-May 2021. Most patients were treated in 2020, during the lockdown (n = 784), predominantly in April (n = 308). Most patients treated in April 2020 were male patients (43.7%, n = 205) and were aged between 30 and 39 years (19.4%, n = 74). The most frequent types of dental emergencies were acute apical periodontitis and acute pulpitis in all the months and years investigated. During the lockdown months of 2020, acute pulpitis was the most frequent type of emergency in March (42.2%, n = 100) and May (45.6%, n = 109), while in April, acute apical periodontitis was the most frequent type of emergency (43.5%, n = 166). The COVID-19 lockdown led to an increase in the number of patients that required emergency treatments and impacted all groups of people investigated.
Keywords: COVID-19; Romania; dental emergency.