Abstract
PurposeEmergency departments are frequently confronted with traumatic dental injuries (TDIs). The prognosis of the injured tooth is related to early dental trauma management. For this reason, physicians must be familiar with the appropriate management of TDI. This study aimed to investigate the knowledge and skills of German emergency physicians regarding TDI.MethodsAn electronic questionnaire was sent to 438 emergency departments throughout Germany. Four hundred and twenty seven questionnaires were evaluated and included in the analysis. The survey contained questions about physician characteristics and assessed their knowledge and skills of managing dental trauma. For statistical analysis, the Kruskal–Wallis, Mann–Whitney U test or ANOVA test was used as appropriate. Rank correlations were performed with the Spearman’s rank correlation.ResultsOut of 427 participants, 256 (59.95%) stated they had no or insufficient knowledge, and 266 (71.12%) stated they had no skills in dental trauma management. Almost 76% of the participants had no previous knowledge of dentistry. Only 7.28% knew the right procedure for replanting an avulsed tooth. Just 26.06% would choose the right medium for temporary tooth storage. Having a dentist in the family (p = 0.0074) or clinical exposure to patients with dental trauma (p = 0.0384) influenced the results of the knowledge score.ConclusionThe knowledge and skills in dental trauma management among German emergency physicians are generally inadequate. Targeted training courses are necessary to ensure early and adequate TDI treatment to reduce the resulting medical and societal costs as much as possible.
Highlights
Emergency departments (EDs) are frequently confronted with dental issues
Emergency physicians must be familiar with the appropriate management of traumatic dental injuries (TDIs) [5, 6] numerous studies report a low level of knowledge and insufficient skills of emergency physicians worldwide and in Europe [6,7,8,9,10,11,12]
This study aimed to investigate the particular knowledge and skills that German emergency physicians have regarding TDI
Summary
Up to 66% of tooth-related ED visits are for managing traumatic dental injuries (TDIs) in different variations [1]. One-third of primary teeth and one-fifth of permanent teeth suffer traumatic injury in their lifetime [2]. TDI is often more time-consuming and costly than many other accidental injuries presenting to the ED [3]. The prognosis of the injured tooth is related to the early beginning of correct dental trauma management [2, 4]. Emergency physicians must be familiar with the appropriate management of TDI [5, 6] numerous studies report a low level of knowledge and insufficient skills of emergency physicians worldwide and in Europe [6,7,8,9,10,11,12].
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