title: Dental trauma management awareness of Singapore pre-school teachers.
abstract: The purpose of this study was to assess the awareness of pre-school teachers concerning the management of traumatized teeth. A questionnaire survey of teachers' backgrounds, attitudes/practices and knowledge was distributed to all teachers who attended a dental education program organized by the Singapore Dental Health Foundation. Of a total of 291 teachers surveyed, 29% had received tertiary education, while the rest (71%) had received secondary education. The mean teaching experience was 6.8 +/- 6.9 years. About a quarter had previous experience in handling dental trauma. Sixty-three percent admitted having no knowledge of dental trauma; 79% were unsatisfied with their level of knowledge in this area; 95% were keen to have further education in dental trauma; 65% thought dental trauma emergency should be dealt with as soon as possible. Concerning knowledge, during-office hour emergency services were more familiar (84%) than after-office hour emergency services (15%), as was the concept of management of avulsed teeth (71%) compared to that of fractured teeth (51%). Knowledge about optimal storage media for avulsed permanent teeth was especially poor--being as low as 15%. Using multiple logistic regression analysis, it was found that teaching experience significantly influenced the respondents' self-assessed knowledge and their level of satisfaction with their knowledge (P = 0.012). Teachers with more teaching experience had better knowledge about the replantation of permanent teeth (P = 0.003). It is recommended that public education targeted at teachers should be carried out to increase dental trauma management awareness.
authors.affiliation: Department of Restorative Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, National University of Singapore, Lower Kent Ridge Rd., 119260 Republic of Singapore. rsdvsl@nus.edu.sg
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Sae-Lim
authors.forename: L P
authors.initials: LP
authors.lastname: Lim
mesh_terms: D001294:Attitude to Health; D002675:Child, Preschool; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D003710:Demography; D004496:Education, Continuing; D004638:Emergency Treatment; D006267:Health Education, Dental; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D016017:Odds Ratio; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D012578:Schools, Nursery; D012846:Singapore; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013663:Teaching; D013997:Time Factors; D014021:Tissue Preservation; D014084:Tooth Avulsion / Q000628:therapy; D014082:Tooth Fractures / Q000628:therapy; D018677:Tooth Injuries / Q000628:therapy*; D014090:Tooth Replantation