Prevalence of the root canal treatment errors and its related factors in patients treated by undergraduate dental students

Abstract

Since errors of root canal treatment can result in tooth loss, it is important to study effective factors on incident of these errors. In recent years, aiming at reducing errors of root canal treatments and improving performance of dental department in Islamic Azad University, Tehran, facilities were provided which included apex locator, teaching Passive-step back in pre-clinic period and presence of professional assistants and professors who helped students. Studying and investigating errors during treatment by students and providing proper preventative solutions increases the chance of successful treatment of patients. According to the changes in methods of teaching root canal preparation and considering benefi t that annual and biennale assessment of prevalence of errors during the treatment has for studying educational performance and future planning, in this study we studied prevalence of errors during root treatment by dental students in general dentistry major and its effective factors, in order to study whether these applied changes reduced errors or not? Firstly, it is hypothesized that effective factors on this errors include quality of radiography, numbers of radiographies, patients' age, type of tooth, type of jaw, canal curvature, periapical lesion, student's semester of the study, student's gender, and numbers of treatment sessions, fi rst treatment of root and second treatment of root. In this research 840 record of patients who had received root canal treatment in public Endodontics sector were evaluated from 2010/9/23 to 2012/09/23. Firstly, two endodontists were calibrated in order to make sure that kappa coeffi cient is positive and they both agreed on that, and then endodontists, separately, completed data forms pertinent to errors during root treatment and related factors. Prevalence of errors was identifi ed in the samples and then role of associated factors was evaluated by logistic regression as statistical test. And after fi rst evaluation of records, sample of study consists of 613 teeth (1131 canals) which out of them 567 teeth received RTC and 46 teeth received re treatment (Redo). Results indicated that there is statistical difference in frequency of errors 689 ARTICLE INFORMATION: