Awareness of medical emergencies among dental practitioners in three Egyptian Dental Schools: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Objectives: To evaluate the awareness of medical emergencies among dental practitioners in three dental schools. Material and methods: The study group included 384 dental practitioners, including dental staff members, post-graduate students, and dental interns. These professionals were attending three dental educational institutions in Egypt. Two of them were governmental and one was a private school. The educational model is almost the same in most Egyptian dental schools. Results: The response rate was 100%. Most of the participants worked in private academia (44.16%) or practice (42.34%) and 65.20% of them were females. The participants recorded medical history and filled a form (91.17%, 80.52 % respectively) while only 41.82% obtained the vital signs. Among the participants, 48.57 % were confident about handling medical emergency and 74.29 % reported their capability of intramuscular injection while only 25.71 % for intravenous injection and 49.35% knew about emergency kits. Management knowledge of airway obstruction and prosthetic heart valve patients was reported by 80.27 % and 71.94 % respectively, while less percentage for activation of EMS, chest compression, CPR ratio, and infant rescue breathing. The mean preparedness percent score was 54.57% and it was inversely correlated to the years of experiences and directly correlated to the degree of confidence in their ability to manage the dental emergency. Conclusion: The current study results reflected a deficiency in the dental practitioner awareness about the medical emergency especially the practical part. Keywords Dentists; Cross-sectional studies; Emergencies; Educational models; Dental schools.

Evaluation of Awareness and Preparedness for Medical Emergencies among Dental Practitioners in Twin Cities of Punjab: A Cross-sectional Study

“…This is in line with several studies conducted by Al-Iryani et al 20 , Seemala Jyotsna et al 21 ,Gupta et al 5 ,Stafuzza et al 22 which reported significantly higher positive response rates of 82%, 61%, 69.9% %, 66% respectively. This is in contrast to other studies 10,13,16,23 where only 46.67%, 49.7%, 48.57 %,43.8%, were confident in dealing with medical emergency themselves. About 68.5% dentists have faced medical emergencies in our study.…”

“…6 In our study 52.5% of practitioners noted vital signs. This is higher than a study conducted in Egypt 16 where only 41.82% obtained the vital signs of patients and also higher than a study 4 done in Saudia where 38% took it during the first visit only and 50% never took it. Conversely study by Verma et al 19 reported about 83.06% record vital signs which is significantly higher than our study.…”

“…According to the findings of the current study, only 57.5% of practitioners complete out proformas and document patient history in their record. This is significantly lower than the findings of a Saudi studies by Al Qahtani et al 4 , Al-Sebaei et al 18 and Egyptian study by Hussain et al 16 who discovered that 87%, 92% and 91.17% of participants questioned about the patient's medical history. Just a little more chair time is needed for this.…”

“…15 It is the responsibility of dental professionals to recognize medical emergencies when they occur and to be skilled enough in providing the best care possible. 16 Despite having completed an official, approved medical emergency training curriculum as part of their undergraduate and graduate degrees, dentists worldwide nevertheless find it difficult to manage similar situations in dental clinic. 5 The dental team must be constantly aware of the nature of these emergencies, be prepared for them, and know how to handle them properly because they put patient's lives and health in danger and cause emotional stress for the dentists handling them.…”

“…These emergencies are unpredictable, need to be handled right away. 16 There are limited local studies on the general dentist knowledge about emergencies. The results of which indicate the dentist's knowledge and readiness to be insufficient in this matter.…”