Assessment of Turkish dentists' knowledge about managing avulsed teeth.

Abstract

The first intervention and clinical experience are important in the treatment of dental avulsions. The aim of this study was to evaluate general dentists' and specialists' knowledge about the management of avulsed teeth. A total of 400 participants were evaluated. The questionnaire consisted of three parts: The first part inquired about personal information. The second part evaluated dentists' knowledge of emergency and clinical management in case of tooth avulsion. The third part was about dentists' perspective on dental trauma education and self-evaluation on dental trauma knowledge. The survey data obtained were analyzed using the Kruskal-Wallis test, Chi-square test, and multiple regression analysis. The questionnaires were answered by 155 dental practitioners, 80 pediatric dentists, and 165 other specialists. Pediatric dentists who have seen more trauma cases during their education are more knowledgeable about the management of tooth avulsion (P < .01). More than half of the dentists who participated in this study (58%) had less than 5 years of experience, 21% had between 6 and 10 years, 6.3% had between 11 and 15 years, 6% had between 16 and 20 years, and 8.8% had more than 20 years of experience in clinical practice. Dentists with fewer years of experience were more knowledgeable than dentists with more years of experience (P < .01). The knowledge of dentists about the management of dental avulsion was acceptable but inadequate. While the knowledge of dentists was moderate, the knowledge of pediatric dentists was good.