Institutionalization of an Efficient and Effective Oral and Maxillofacial Injury Surveillance System at a Tertiary Care Public Dental Hospital: An Interventional Study from Sri Lanka

Oral and Maxillofacial (OMF) injuries constitute a multifaceted public health threat in Sri Lanka. Surveillance of OMF injuries has become crucial for planning and monitoring of preventive and control strategies. A pilot project was undertaken aiming at strengthening the OMF injury surveillance system at National Dental Hospital (Teaching) Sri Lanka (NDHTSL).

The current interventional study with pre- and post-evaluation was conducted from March 1, 2020 to May 31, 2020 at NDHTSL. Pre-intervention assessment was performed to identify the deficiencies in the injury surveillance system. Subsequently, a novel OMF injury surveillance system was introduced and implemented at NDHTSL. The interventions were conducted over a period of 3 months, following which a post-intervention assessment was performed to assess the success of the interventions.

The previous injury surveillance system had many deficiencies, such as lack of comprehensiveness, not specific to dental trauma, lack of data flow and high respondent burden, etc. Interventions included development of a novel OMF injury surveillance form, circulating comprehensive guidelines on the new system and awareness program for relevant staff. Quality indicators of injury surveillance demonstrated improvements from pre-intervention stage to post-intervention stage, such as coverage from 2.7% to 72.2%, completeness from 95% to 100%, and accuracy from 66% to 100%. The perceptions and satisfaction of the dental surgeons on OMF injury surveillance system was significantly improved by the intervention (p≤0.001).

  The strengthened OMF injury surveillance system was deemed efficient and effective. Further studies are warranted at different service levels prior to island wide expansion of the present system by incorporation and integration of it into the existing National Injury Surveillance System.