Awareness of dental practitioners to cope with a medical emergency: a survey in Belgium. (26th June 2013)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Marks, Luc A. M.; Van Parys, Celine; Coppens, Marc; Herregods, Luc
• Is Part Of: International dental journal. Volume 63:Number 6(2013:Dec.)
• Page Start: 312
• Page End: 316
• Publication Date: 2013-06-26
• Subjects: Dentistry -- Periodicals; Dentistry -- Periodicals; 617.6005
• DOI: 10.1111/idj.12046
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0020-6539

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main" id="idj12046-abs-0001"> <title> <x xml:space="preserve">Abstract</x> </title> <sec id="idj12046-sec-0001" sec-type="section"> <title>Objective</title> <p>The aim of the study is to determine whether in Belgium dentists feel confident to diagnose a medical emergency situation in their dental practice.</p> </sec> <sec id="idj12046-sec-0002" sec-type="section"> <title>Methods</title> <p>A questionnaire was completed by 7.0% of the active Belgian general dental practitioners (<italic>n</italic> = 548) including questions on the frequency and knowledge of medical emergency situations in the dental office, history of dental training to treat emergency situations and confidence level in treating emergency situations.</p> </sec> <sec id="idj12046-sec-0003" sec-type="section"> <title>Results</title> <p>A medical history of each patient was taken by 55.3% of the dentists. A link was found between years since graduation and the systematic decline of a medical history in a new patient (<italic>P</italic> = 0.001): the older the dentist, the less consistent was the updating of medical history. Almost 50% of the dentists (49.4%) never participated in any basic life support (BLS) training during their undergraduate education. Moreover, 78.3% never had any paediatric BLS training during undergraduate education and BLS training after graduation was lacking by 37.2% of the dentists.</p> </sec> <sec id="idj12046-sec-0004" sec-type="section"> <title>Conclusion</title> <p>Knowledge of BLS should be fundamental to medical professionals. The more BLS training a practitioner has experienced, the more self‐secure they feel coping with an emergency situation.</p> </sec> </abstract>