feedback of patients regarding orthodontic treatment during the covid-19 pandemic on twitter: a qualitative study

Aim: this study aimed to assess the feedback of patients regarding orthodontic treatment during the coronavirus pandemic of 2019 (covid-19).methods: in this observational study, keywords related to orthodontic treatment along with either “corona” or “covid” were searched in twitter during a two-month period from 2 october 2020 to 12 october 2021. the retrieved tweets were categorized into five themes of pain, getting braces, limitations due to covid-19, seeking information, and delayed treatment based on content, and were then manually categorized into three groups of positive, neutral, and negative tweets. next, a coding system was designed by the software maxqda, and the tweets were coded. data were analyzed by the analysis feature of maxqda.results: of a total of 424 tweets retrieved, 95 were excluded. the majority of the tweets were about limitations due to covid-19 (n=156) and were negative (n=213). also, the majority of the tweets were posted by female users (67.5%). the most common reason for the negative tweets of patients was delayed treatment (43.9%). also, poor performance of orthodontic clinics and orthodontists with regard to informing and reassuring the patients about protective measures was another reason for the negative tweets of patients (12.5%).conclusion: delayed treatment was the most common cause of patient dissatisfaction followed by poor awareness and reassurance of patients regarding adherence to the preventive measures and hygienic protocols during the covid-19 pandemic.