General Dental Practitioners’ Knowledge about the Emergency Management of Dental Trauma

Introduction: The aim of this descriptive cross-sectional study was to assess the general dental practitioners (GDPs)’s knowledge regarding the emergency management of traumatic dental injuries (TDI) in Isfahan, Iran. Methods and Materials: In this study a two-part questionnaire consisting of 14 questions was distributed among 241 GDPs. Part 1 included seven questions focusing on personal and professional information and part 2 asked questions about seven given cases of dental traumas. One score was dedicated to each correct answer; the total score of 0 to 4 was considered as poor knowledge, while scores 5-8, 9-11 and 12-14 were assigned as moderate, good and excellent knowledge, respectively. The data were analyzed using the Student’s t-test and one-way ANOVA. Spearman’s and Pearson’s correlation coefficient were used to determine the associations between the emergency treatment knowledge and dentists’ professional information. Results: With regards to the level of GDP’s knowledge, the mean score was 7.61±2.68 suggesting a moderate score; a total of 177 (73.2%) of the dentists showed a moderate level of knowledge. A significant association was found between the frequency of dental trauma cases that were encountered and treated by GDPs in their daily practice (P=0.004, r=0.2). Conclusion: The overall knowledge of GDPs about the emergency management of TDI in the selected community was moderate.