Knowledge on First Aid Management of Traumatic Dental Injuries Among Primary School Teachers of Dharan, Nepal

Abstract

Introduction: Majority of the traumatic dental injuries (TDIs) occur at schools. School teachers are the immediate person to come in contact after dental injuries, so it is necessary for them to have knowledge about the first aid management of the injured tooth. Objective: To determine the knowledge of first aid management of TDIs among primary school teachers of Dharan, Nepal. Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire based study was conducted among primary school teachers of Dharan city. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed among 110 school teachers equally from both public (n = 55) and private (n = 55) schools. Descriptive statistics, chi-square test, and logistic regression analysis were used to report the data. The level of significance was set at p < 0.05. Results: The mean age of the school teachers participating in the study was 36.38 ± 10.98 years. Majority of them (73.6%) were females. Only few school teachers (23.6%) were informed or trained about dental trauma. The primary source of information was through the internet (57.7%). More than two-third of the school teachers had poor knowledge (85.5%) on first-aid management of TDIs. A statistically significant difference was observed in the primary management of avulsed tooth between teachers of public and private schools (p = 0.007). Conclusion: The findings of this study concluded that primary school teachers of Dharan city had poor knowledge on first-aid management of TDIs which reflects a need to improve their knowledge on the same.