The Impact of Restarting the High-Risk Procedures for COVID-19 Infection in Dental Practice on the Anxiety of Dental Employees: A Study with Repeated Measures.

BACKGROUND: As SARS-CoV-2 is detected in the infected patients' saliva, dental employees performing aerosol-generating procedures are at high risk of being infected/spreading the infection. AIMS: This study aimed to assess the impact of restarting the high-risk procedures for COVID-19 infection in dental practice during the pandemic on the anxiety levels of dental employees. METHODS: All dental employees (dentists, nurses, data entry/cleaning staff) working in a university dental clinic were invited to the study and eighty-one employees (response rate: 97.5%) participated in the study. The volunteers' anxiety was measured consecutively twice with the State-Trait Anxiety Scale: First, on the day prior to restarting the high-risk procedures and the second, on the day these procedures began. Data were analyzed using t tests and the repeated measures ANOVA. RESULTS: The state anxiety level of the dental employees increased significantly on the day that the high risk procedures were restarted (mean 42.6 vs. 49.0, d = 0.6, P < 0.001). Concerning the subgroups, the increase in state anxiety levels was significant for females (t = 3,7; d = 0,8; P < 0.001), dentists working in departments of endodontics and restorative dental care (t = 3,5; d = 0,9; P < 0.001) and nurses (t = 2,8; d = 0,9; P < 0.001). The analysis showed no significant difference in trait anxiety levels between the assessment days (mean 44.0 vs. 44.2, P = 0.9). CONCLUSIONS: Restarting the high-risk procedures for COVID-19 infection in dental practice during the pandemic seems to be an extra stressor for dental employees' who already have high anxiety levels during the pandemic.

Evaluation of hematological markers in minor head trauma in the emergency room.

INTRODUCTION: A rule exists regarding the use of computed tomography (CT) for patients presenting to the emergency department with head trauma and a Glasgow coma score (GCS) of 15; however, it can be difficult to make this decision due to overcrowded emergency rooms or exaggerated patients complaints. We evaluated patients who presented to the emergency room with minor head trauma, and we aimed to investigate the relationship between brain pathology on CT and hematological markers in order to find markers that help us identify brain pathology in patients with a GCS of 15. METHODS: This retrospective study included 100 patients with pathologies present on their CT scans and a control group consisting of 100 patients with a normal CT. All data obtained from this study were recorded and evaluated using "Statistical Package for Social Sciences for Windows 20" program. Parametric tests (independent samples test) were used with normally distributed data, while non-parametric tests (Mann-Whitney U test) were used with non-normally distributed data. A p ≤ 0.05 was considered significant. FINDING: When we divided the cases into two groups based on the presence of pathologies on CT scan, we determined that there were significant differences between the groups in terms of white blood cell (WBC), hemoglobin (Hb), mean platelet volume (MPV), neutrophil (neu), troponin T, neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet/lymphocyte ratio (PLR). When differentiating the patients that had brain pathologies on CT scan from patients that had normal CT scans, the troponin T cut-off value of 6.16 lead to 90 % specificity, and setting the NLR cut-off value at 4.29 resulted in a specificity of 90 %. CONCLUSION: MPV, NLR, and troponin T can be used as parameters that indicate brain pathologies on CT scans of patients presenting to the emergency department with isolated minor head trauma and GCS of 15 when the necessity of a CT scan is otherwise unclear.