Information and Communication Technologies (ICTS) in Dentistry for SUS

Summary

At the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of children had their dental care interrupted or postponed, generating a pent-up demand for primary care. In order to minimize the impact of this outage of face-to-face care, information and communication technologies could be an alternative and even likely to be envisioned within the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS). In this sense, this study sought to show the impact of the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the resolution of the pent-up demand for primary dental care to children in the SUS, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, proposing the use of telemonitoring, teleorientation and telescreening to resolve and address demands arising from this outage in primary elective care. The impact of the use of these strategies will be measured in terms of problem-solving, reduction of waiting time to resolve complaints and caregivers' perception about received care. For this, two clinical studies were designed and a primarily trial-based economic evaluation was planned. Mathematical models will be used to transpose these results into the reality of the SUS, in view of the State Health Secretariat of São Paulo and different Brazilian scenarios. Finally, the investigators also aim to study the possibility of implementing these technologies mentioned in the daily life of the SUS, even after a pandemic, and to check the possibility of incorporating and costing them, as well as exploring possible social impact and relationship with possible inequities in health.

Conditions

• Dental Caries in Children
• Dental Diseases

Interventions

OTHER

Telemonitoring and teleorientation

Teleservice will be performed through a digital platform (Video for Health" - V4H). The service will consist of: a) recognition of the condition identified in the pandemic period, including updates on medical history, current oral health condition, search for dental care in other units, need for referral, change of hygiene habits, b) realization of diet guidance, hygiene and other necessary habits, made from a situational recognition of such habits, c) targeting the needs presented, in which individualized counselling will be given seeking to meet the demand presented by that family nucleus. A dental form developed on the digital platform Google Forms will serve as a guide for the performance of the service and where the collected data will be formally recorded. The guidelines, although individualized for the needs of each child, will follow a pre-defined and standardized structure and based on the best evidence available in the subject.

OTHER

Control Group - Waiting list

No intervention (at least, until the time frame for outcome assessment)

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Federal University of Paraíba

  collaborator OTHER

• Federal University of São Paulo

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Sao Paulo

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Mariana M Braga, PhD · USP

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Masking

TRIPLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

3 Years

Max Age

13 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2020-12-01

Primary Completion

2021-06-30

Completion

2022-06-30

Countries

• Brazil

Study Locations