Knowledge about traumatic dental injuries in the permanent dentition: A survey of Lithuanian dentists.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: In Lithuania, dental trauma cases are often treated by general dentists, but it is unknown whether their age, self-evaluation of trauma knowledge and practice location can predict their actual knowledge and management of trauma cases. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether these factors can be used to predict the actual knowledge and management of trauma cases.

METHODS

A 2-part questionnaire included 17 multiple-choice questions about practitioners' demographics, their self-evaluated knowledge and how frequently they treated traumatized permanent teeth as well as 13 clinical scenarios reflecting a variety of clinical trauma cases and their complications. A total of 980 randomly selected general dentists, representing 5 Lithuanian counties, participated in the study.

RESULTS

The response rate was 59.4% (n = 582). Overall, 82.3% of general dentists reported that they treated only a few dental trauma cases and 14.4% chose to refer their patients; 55.1% of dentists considered their dental traumatology knowledge to be sufficient but incomplete and 34.0% self-evaluated their knowledge as insufficient. The most knowledge (based on self-evaluation) was reported by the younger dentists (≤50 years; P = .004). The mean correct knowledge score was 7.6 ± 2.2 of the 13 clinical scenarios. Both bivariate and multivariate analyses showed that greater trauma-related knowledge was associated with a younger age. Better knowledge was observed amongst the dentists who self-evaluated their own knowledge as sufficient or as comprehensive.

CONCLUSION

Lithuanian general dentists have insufficient dental traumatology knowledge. Better knowledge was observed amongst younger dentists (≤50 years).