Drugs Prescription in Pediatric Dentistry

Prescription of medicine is not done frequently in Pediatric Dentistry but clinicians must know how to use the available drugs, considering the special care required when it comes to give children medicine. Objective:the aim of this study was to assess studentsx knowledge regarding drugs prescription for children and identify the main difficulties in this task and the most frequently prescribed drugs. Methods: it was applied a questionnaire with 9 multiple choice questions to 75 undergraduate students of UNESP - São Paulo State University – Araraquara School of Dentistry. The collected data were analyzed by descriptive statistics. Results: it was found that 46,7% of the students rarely feel security when prescribing drugs for children. Considering drugs categories, the sedatives cause many doubts during prescription (95 %). On the other hand, the analgesics are easily prescribed (61%) and paracetamol (acetaminophen) is the most used one (61%). Amoxicillin was selected as the first choice antibiotic by 80% of the students. Regarding the drug dosages, 50% of the students rarely indicate the dose that is given by the children's parents and 65% consider the child weight to calculate the medicine dosage. Conclusions: these results suggest that dentistry students consider the drug prescription for children a complex task.