Evaluation of Status of Emergency Equipment, Medicines, and Usage Ability at the Appropriate Time in General Dental Offices

Abstract

Background: Medical emergencies are a series of clinical events that occur during/after dental procedures accidentally or due to patients' systemic problems. In this case, basic life support measures are the first and most important step for controlling medical emergencies, which require the knowledge, skills, and equipment. Accordingly, this study aimed to investigate dentists' awareness of emergency equipment and medicines in general dental clinics in Rasht in 2019. Methods: To this end, 56 general dentists working in dental offices in Rasht in 2019 were included in this cross-sectional study by a census sampling method. The data were analysed by Kruskal-Wallis and Pearson correlation tests in SPSS software version 24, and the significance level was set at 5%. Results: Based on the obtained data, 94.6% (53 dentists) of the participants answered the questionnaire, and 26.4% (14 dentists) of dental offices reported facing with emergency cases during the previous year. In addition, the highest frequency (33.3%) was associated with unconsciousness. All (100%) dentists asked their patients about cardiovascular and respiratory diseases before treatment. From the dentists' perspective, oxygen and dopamine were the most and the least important medications in the frequency distribution of emergency medicines, respectively. Eventually, the investigation of the medicines and emergency equipment showed that oxygen was the most frequent equipment while verapamil was the least frequent medicine in dental offices. Conclusions: The mean score of dentists' knowledge was moderate. Thus, there is a clear need for educating dentists regarding increasing their preparedness for emergency management. Therefore, it is recommended that dental students pass some courses in relation to a medical emergency in dentistry during their studies, and educational programs should be considered as the retraining classes and continuous short courses for graduated dentists.