School teachers’ knowledge of management of tooth avulsion in children in Lagos, Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Dental trauma (traumatic dental injury TDI) is an impact injury to the teeth and/or other hard and soft tissues within and around the vicinity of the mouth and oral cavity. School is one of the most common places where dental injuries occur. Prompt and pertinent emergency management is required to considerably improve treatment outcome of such injuries. This is not only the responsibility of the dentist but of lay people, such as the parents and the school teachers available at the site of accident.

Methods: This was a 16-item self-administered questionnaire-based study carried out among six public and private school teachers in Lagos State. The questionnaire was divided into two parts. The first part contained questions on name (optional), gender, age, age group, educational level and how long they have been teaching. The second part of the questionnaire tested the teachers’ knowledge on the emergency management of avulsed teeth. It contained both open and closed questions

Results: A total of 168 teachers filled the questionnaires. About 71.4% of the teachers have not received any formal or informal lecture on the management of tooth avulsion while only 28.9% had experienced tooth avulsion during their teaching career. A total of 27.4% of them had good knowledge of dental trauma. There was no statistically significant association between the knowledge of the school teachers and the socio demographic work characteristics.

Conclusion: This study shows that school teachers (private, public, primary and secondary) in this environment have poor knowledge of tooth avulsion with poor emergency actionable practices. Therefore, the dental community needs to continue tooth avulsion awareness campaign with more emphasis on improving the teachers’ knowledge and practices.