First Aid Management in Emergency Care of Dental Injuries – Knowledge Among Teachers in Rijeka, Croatia

Abstract

SUMMARY -Th e aim of the present cross-sectional study was to investigate the knowledge and attitude regarding emergency treatment of dental trauma among elementary school teachers in the city of Rijeka, Croatia. A total of 144 teachers answered a four-part questionnaire which comprised questions regarding demographic data, role and responsibility at the working place, knowledge about dental trauma, and motivation for further education on the topic. Nearly half of the participants (47.2%) reported having seen at least one dental trauma in their professional careers. Th ey chose to contact the child's parent fi rst (54.1%) and only 11.1% chose to contact a dentist instead. Th e majority of teachers (81.9%) were not aware of the meaning of the term avulsio dentis. As to treatment of avulsed tooth, 17.3% of teachers knew the appropriate management, while 14% of them would not even touch it. With regard to transport of avulsed tooth or fractured tooth fragments, only 2% responded correctly. Th e majority of the responders (87.5%) had never been educated about dental trauma, but were willing to be informed through lectures (53.4%), basic life support courses (15.2%) and brochures (9.7%). Planning teachers' education through advanced training on the topic is suggested to be part of teachers' lifetime education.

Knowledge and Attitudes about Dental Trauma Among the Students of the University of Split

“…Self-assessed knowledge about dental injuries among tested students is mostly inadequate (very poor, poor and fair). These results are in correspondence with previously published studies on health and educational professionals ( 3 , 5 , 10 , 11 , 20 , 24 ). a small number of previously published studies compared the knowledge and the attitude before and after dental health education.…”

“…In the present study, insufficient knowledge was also shown by preschool education and teacher’s education students. There are numerous studies confirming a low level of knowledge about dental trauma among preschool education teachers/students and teachers’ education students /school teachers in Croatia and other countries ( 5 - 7 , 23 ).…”

“…Among the tested students of physical education, teachers’ education and preschool education, approximately 60% of them showed interest in future education and nearly 50% of them have considered awareness of dental trauma management important for their future work. Bakarcic et al ( 5 ) in their survey conducted on Croatian teachers, showed that 93% of students did not receive any formal training on this subject, yet over 87.0% of them were willing to participate in the training on such a subject. Similar results regarding the teacher population were obtained in other countries ( 28 , 29 ).…”

“…If replantation is not possible at the site of the accident, the tooth should be immediately placed in a suitable medium (milk, patient's mouth/saliva, and special storage media) that will allow PDL cells to survive until the moment of replantation ( 5 ). The present study did not find a satisfactory response rate regarding the storage medium.…”

Knowledge of Australian primary education providers towards dental avulsion injuries: a cross‐sectional study

“…The prognosis of avulsion injuries is often dependent on the decisions and actions taken by attending first‐aiders and inevitably relies on their knowledge of factors such as urgency, manipulation, replantation and transportation. Despite their ideal positioning, school professionals have largely been shown to lack the knowledge and skills required to effectively handle such situations in international cohorts . A similar lack of knowledge in this regard has been found among parents, physical education graduates, fire‐fighters, emergency department physicians and nurses …”