Abstract

Introduction: Dental avulsion is very common in children and its timely management is often important prognosis of dentition. Primary school teachers are the one who frequently encounter dental avulsion and provide first aid and refer the child. This study was carried out with an objective to assess the knowledge and practices of primary school teachers situated in urban and rural parts of Lahore city, Pakistan and to see the impact of sensitization lecture on dental avulsion management.

Methods: This prospective descriptive study was carried out in primary schools of Lahore city from January 2020 to March 2020 on 208 primary school teachers of schools located in urban and rural areas of Lahore City, Pakistan. Total of 19 schools from Lahore were selected randomly and the study was done in three phases. Knowledge and practices towards dental avulsion were assessed before and after giving the sensitization lecture on dental avulsion management by questionnaire method.

Results: Out of 208 respondents, 123 (59.1%) were females primary school teachers and 85 (40.8%) were male teachers. Moderate levels of knowledge and practices were noted in primary school teachers of rural and urban areas with marginally good levels in primary school teachers from urban areas. After the sensitization lecture there was good improvement in almost all aspects of knowledge and practice levels barring few practices like cleaning the avulsed tooth before replanting and attempt to replant the avulsed tooth by themselves before referring to dentist.

Conclusion: Primary school teachers has inadequate knowledge for proper management of dental avulsion. Training of teachers by dental experts on primary management of dental avulsion had a great impact on practices of school teachers and this emphasizes the importance of inclusion of primary aid on dental avulsion as part of teacher’s education programmes.

Keywords: Dental avulsion, primary school teachers, Pakistan, replanting of tooth