Knowledge of dental trauma among dental students. Lecture intervention protocol and follow‐up over four academic courses

Abstract

Background and Aims A study was made to evaluate knowledge of dental trauma among first‐year dental students at the start of the career; assess the knowledge gained immediately after a lecture intervention; and evaluate persisting knowledge on an annual basis until the fourth year of the career. Material and Methods The study involved 29 volunteers from the first year of dentistry (School of Dentistry, Madrid Complutense University, Madrid, Spain). All the participants completed a previously validated questionnaire including questions referred to the management of dental trauma at the site of the accident, and other related aspects. This was followed by a brief lecture on the subject, and then the same questionnaire was administered again. Completion of the original questionnaire was subsequently repeated on an annual basis up until the fourth year of the career. Repeated measures analysis was used to assess the evolution of student knowledge. Results Knowledge of the subject was seen to be lacking at the start of the career, but increased significantly as a result of the lecture intervention (P < .001). Over the subsequent courses, although the notions referred to dental trauma were seen to decrease with respect to the first evaluation, they remained high. All of the participants agreed on the need for informative campaigns referred to dental trauma targeted to students in the first courses of the health sciences. Conclusions It is necessary to impart knowledge on the prevention and immediate management of dental traumatisms in order to improve their prognosis. This learning is especially relevant to students in the first courses of the health sciences.

Evaluation of knowledge levels about dental trauma (avulsion) and treatment approach of the students of medicine and dentistry faculties

“…To the question in which their dental trauma experiences were investigated, 31% of our participants stated that they have not encountered tooth injury before. In a similar study conducted in Malaysia in 2020, 89.4% of the students; In another similar publication conducted in Spain in the same year, it was reported that 79% of the students did not see any dental injuries (32,34). It can be concluded that the history of trauma occurs at different rates regardless of the regions.…”

Evaluation of Knowledge on Emergency Management of Avulsed Teeth Among Turkish Medical and Dental Students

“…However, it has not been studied enough to evaluate dental trauma knowledge among medical and dental students. Very few studies have examined undergraduate education for dental trauma and the impacts of a certain educational intervention on dental and medical students' knowledge acquisition [9,[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. The studies were mostly conducted on post-graduate practitioners [7,8,[19][20][21][22][23].…”

“…However, they stated that it did not last long to retain that information. Valdepeñas et al [18] stated that the first-year dental students demonstrated inadequate basic knowledge of dental trauma management, and a lecture appears to be an effective educational intervention for improving their level of knowledge of the subject (before: 20.5±3.3; immediately after: 28.8±1.7; on a scale of 0 to 30; p<0.001). They noted that the notions referred to dental trauma decreased three years after the conference, but remained high (3 years after: 28.3±2.7).…”