Smartphones and dental trauma: the current availability of apps for managing traumatic dental injuries.

Abstract

There is a general consensus regarding the lack of awareness regarding the emergency management of traumatic dental injuries amongst laypersons and dental professionals. This article aims to provide an overview of the apps available for traumatic dental injuries using smartphones. These apps may serve as a gateway for raising awareness of traumatic dental injuries. Three smartphone devices were used to access their respective app stores (Nokia Lumia 635 with Windows Phone OS 8.1; iPhone 5 with iOS 8.1; Samsung Galaxy Ace II with Android OS v2.3.6 Gingerbread). Nine phrases were searched: broken tooth/teeth; chipped tooth/teeth; dental emergency; dental injury; dental trauma; fractured tooth/teeth; knocked-out tooth/teeth; tooth/teeth injury; and tooth/teeth trauma. Seven apps for the Android and one app for the Apple operating system were relevant. The only Apple iOS app retrieved (Dental Trauma) was also found for the Android OS (Dental Trauma First Aid) and had the endorsement of the International Association of Dental Traumatology. AcciDent was the only app dedicated to traumatic dental injuries targeted solely towards dental professionals. Five other apps (Chipped Tooth Solution, Dental Crown Repair, Fixing Cracked Tooth, Repairing the Front Tooth and Solution to Broken Tooth) appeared to come from the same source (KBES). No traumatic dental injury apps were found for the Windows Phone OS. There are apps available for both patients and dentists that range in quality and on the whole lack real-life photographs. Future apps should continue to provide good quality, evidence-based and validated material.