Abstract

Objective: To assess the knowledge of clinical dental students and interns in the emergency management of traumatic tooth avulsion.

Materials and Method: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study of clinical dental students and interns at the University of Benin/University of Benin Teaching Hospital. A 13-item self-administered questionnaire which sought information on the demographic characteristics of the participants, knowledge of tooth avulsion, factors that influence success of replantation, storage media and current developments in storage media for storing an avulsed tooth was used. Data was analyzed using IBM SPSS 21.0.

Results: The study population consisted of house officers (56.9%), final year dental students (24.1%) and penultimate dental students (18.9%). Majority (82.8%) knew that an avulsed tooth is a tooth that has been completely dislodged from its socket in the alveolar bone. Majority of (90.4%) of those who had received information regarding tooth avulsion knew what an avulsed tooth was (p < 0.0001). There was increased experience with permanent tooth avulsion with increasing status of the respondents from penultimate student to house officers (p < 0.0001). A higher proportion (90.9%) of the house officers compared to the final year students (28.6%) and penultimate students (18.2%) opined that an avulsed permanent tooth should not be replanted in its socket in all cases and this was statistically significant (p = 0.002). Majority (74.1%) of the respondents stated that dental treatment for an avulsed tooth be sought immediately after the traumatic incident. The most prevalent influencing factor observed was mechanical damage during avulsion and replantation (81.0%). The most prevalent media selected was isotonic saline solution (81.0%), followed by Hank’s balanced salt solution (72.4%) and patient’s mouth/saliva (69.0%). The most prevalent current development in storage media reported by the respondents was egg albumin (39.7%), followed by coconut water (34.5%).

Conclusion: There is need for improved knowledge regarding management of traumatic tooth avulsion.

Keywords: Traumatic Tooth Avulsion; Dental Students; Knowledge; Dental Interns

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Citation

Citation: Brenda Ighoteguono Mohammed and Joan Emien Enabulele. “Knowledge of Tooth Avulsion and its Management among Clinical Dental Students and Interns". Acta Scientific Medical Sciences 4.12 (2020): 64-73.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2020 Brenda Ighoteguono Mohammed and Joan Emien Enabulele. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.