Evaluating the knowledge of elementary school health teachers of Sanandaj about traumatic dental injuries in year 2017-2018

Abstract

Background and Aims: Trauma to primary and permanent teeth caused post-traumatic complications affecting the health of teeth and led to specific problems in treatment. As prognosis of trauma has closed correlation with immediate and correct management after occurrence of the incident and the health educators are the first people in contact with children in this places, their awareness of how to deal with these injuries plays an important role in prevention and treatment. This study aimed to evaluate the knowledge of health educators in confrontation with dental injuries in primary schools of Sanandaj in 2018. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, all of fifty-nine health teachers in primary schools of Sanandaj were identified after referring to education centre. The questionnaires were provided to the school health teachers after referring to schools and after completing questionnaires, collected data were analyzed. In order to test the research hypotheses, Multiple regression, Non-parametric tests of spearman correlation coefficient, Mann-Whitney and kruskal-wallis were utilized using SPSS software version 20. Results: The mean knowledge score of fifty-nine health educators was 14.02±3.41 and knowledge score of females was higher. There was no significant statistical correlation between knowledge score, age, work experience and education level (P>0.05). In this study, the knowledge score of experienced teachers in confrontation with injured persons and health educators who attended related training courses, was higher than others but this difference was not statistically significant (P>0.05). Conclusion: The results indicated inadequate knowledge regarding emergency management of dental trauma. Thus strategies to improve the teachers’ knowledge about dental trauma can positively influence their knowledge and attitudes toward emergency management of dental trauma.

Keywords

• Knowledge
• Tooth injury
• Health educator