Woolley Julian, Donnell Christopher, Worthington Stuart
Dental Core Trainee, King's College London, King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, United Kingdom.
Dental Core Trainee, Newcastle Dental Hospital, Newcastle Upon Tyne NHS Hospitals Foundation Trust, United Kingdom.
Heliyon. 2020 Nov;6(11):e05516. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e05516. Epub 2020 Nov 16.
INTRODUCTION/OBJECTIVES: As a result of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, primary care specialist orthodontic practices have been limited to providing emergency treatment only. This has resulted in a cessation of normal face-to-face services and patient advice can only be offered by remote means. A service evaluation was carried out to assess the quality of information published on websites and social media pages of specialist orthodontic practices in London, against General Dental Council guidance on communication and advertising and the British Orthodontic Society (BOS) COVID-19 specific guidance for orthodontics in primary care in relation to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This study also aimed to provide a gold standard template for orthodontic practices to aid in the delivery of information on a digital platform during the current (COVID-19) pandemic and future possible spikes.
All orthodontic practices providing care in the London region were identified from a CQC Database and subsequently checked against predetermined criteria based on the BOS guidance and the GDC Guidance on Ethical Advertising.
Of the 83 orthodontic practices sampled; 78 had a website of which 18 (23.1%) were non-compliant with GDC guidance. Facebook pages were identified for 62 orthodontic practices. 17 practices did not provide any update in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. This was more frequently carried out on practice websites (78.2%) compared to Facebook pages (33.9%). A number of practices were identified as having novel strategies to manage communication during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Variation was observed in information published by practices despite the regularly updated, blanket information provided by the BOS. Communication may have been delivered by a different means during the pandemic which this study did not account for. In addition, the sampling method may not have identified all practices within the London region, however the sample size seems appropriate to draw meaningful conclusions. The checklist created should help improve the delivery of future information.
引言/目标：由于2019冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行，正畸专科初级保健机构仅限于提供紧急治疗。这导致正常的面对面服务停止，患者咨询只能通过远程方式提供。根据英国牙科总会关于沟通和广告的指南以及英国正畸学会（BOS）针对初级保健正畸学的COVID-19特定指南，开展了一项服务评估，以评估伦敦正畸专科机构网站和社交媒体页面上发布的信息质量。本研究还旨在为正畸机构提供一个黄金标准模板，以帮助在当前（COVID-19）大流行及未来可能的高峰期在数字平台上提供信息。
从护理质量委员会（CQC）数据库中识别出伦敦地区所有提供正畸护理的机构，随后根据基于BOS指南和GDC道德广告指南的预定标准进行检查。
在抽样的83家正畸机构中，78家有网站，其中18家（23.1%）不符合GDC指南。确定了62家正畸机构的Facebook页面。17家机构未提供任何与COVID-19大流行相关的更新信息。与Facebook页面（33.9%）相比，这种情况在机构网站上更为常见（78.2%）。一些机构被确定在COVID-19大流行期间有新颖的沟通管理策略。
尽管BOS提供了定期更新的全面信息，但各机构发布的信息仍存在差异。在大流行期间，沟通方式可能有所不同，而本研究并未考虑到这一点。此外，抽样方法可能未识别出伦敦地区的所有机构，不过样本量似乎足以得出有意义的结论。创建的清单应有助于改善未来的信息提供。
