Evaluation of intern’s knowledge of dental trauma using mobile phone app: An institution-based study

Abstract

Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate dental interns’ knowledge regarding the treatment of traumatic dental injuries. Materials and methods: A total of 110 dental interns participated in the study.Quiz questions from the INJURED TOOTH mobile app were given to the interns of a dental college. They were asked to attempt the quiz at the beginning of their clinical posting in paediatric dentistry. A second quiz with the same questions was conducted after the completion of their clinical posting. The quiz was in English language and consisted of 37 questions based on crown fracture, crown root fracture, luxation injury, root fracture, avulsion, and others. The data available from filled forms were entered in Microsoft Excel. Quantitative analysis was done using IBM SPSS version 22.0 (IBM Corporation, Chicago, US), the p-value of less than 0.05 was considered significant. Results: The knowledge of interns before their clinical postings were insufficient (65.47%). The knowledge was significantly improved after the completion of their clinical posting (76.13%). The mean score of knowledge on crown fracture among the participants before and after the clinical postings was 69.17% and 80.48% respectively. For crown root fracture- 82.17% and 84.33% , for luxation Injuries- 53.83% and 70%, for root fracture - 56.55% and 74.52%, for avulsion 67.71 and 75.21% and for other traumatic injuries - 64.17% and 71.67% Conclusion: The results of the current study demonstrate that dental interns lack the necessary knowledge to treat dental injuries. This highlights the need to introduce subjects relevant to dental trauma into the curriculum and use a variety of teaching strategies, such as problem-based learning, to increase the understanding of dental interns about dental trauma and its management.