Effectiveness and acceptability of First aid dental trauma educational intervention for Non-dental Health Professionals

The first aid/emergency management for traumatic dental injuries is crucial for preserving the natural smile. It is well documented that up to 66% of all emergency hospital visits for dental issues are related to traumatic dental injuries. Thus, medical professionals are typically responsible for managing the initial phase of dental trauma . However, studies have indicated that medical professionals’, and nursing professionals’ knowledge of dental trauma management is often lacking.

Despite the importance of first aid for dental trauma, the provision of oral health education in undergraduate medical programs is reported to be minimal, and traumatic dental injury management is often non-existent.3 For instance, a study conducted among medical students in Melaka, Malaysia, found that 98.4% had low knowledge of the emergency management of tooth avulsion.

This gap in knowledge underscores the need for more comprehensive education on dental trauma management in medical curricula. This highlights the need for improved education and training in dental trauma management within the medical field.

Worldwide, a lot of work has been conducted among school teachers, and efforts have been made to train school teachers in the emergency management of dental trauma. However, medical doctors would benefit from having more basic knowledge of dental anatomy, including the structure of the tooth and surrounding tissues, if they were trained for first aid treatment of tooth avulsion injury. There have been limited studies on the knowledge of medical professionals related to tooth avulsion in the Indian scenario.  thus, this study has been planned with aim to evaluate the effectiveness of ‘First aid dental trauma educational intervention’ for Non-     dental Health Professionals