Assessment of Thai teacher knowledge about dental trauma management

Objectives: To assess the knowledge of primary school teachers concerning the management of traumatized teeth before and after attending dental trauma management programme. Methods: A questionnaire survey of teacher's backgrounds and knowledge was distributed to all teachers who attended a dental trauma management education program organized by postgraduate student from Department of Hospital Dentistry, Mahidol University. 176 primary school teachers were participated in this study. Wilcoxon signed rank test analysis was used to compare pre and post test score. Chi-square test was used to analyse the participants' background including teaching experience and age. Results: Of a total 176 teachers surveyed, 21.6% of all participants had been informed about dental trauma management, while the rest (78.4%) never. 29.5% of all participants had experience in handling dental trauma. The participants had least understanding how to manage avulsion tooth (46.59%),followed by luxation tooth. Nevertheless, the most understanding was how to manage subluxation tooth. After attended program, all participants had improved all of the knowledge about dental trauma management especially for tetanus vaccine required when exposed to dental trauma (97.15%). Conclusion: It was found that post-test score was significantly more than pre-test score at P-value = 0.05. The teaching experience and age were not significantly influenced the higher post-test score at P-value = 0.05. From this study, it is suggested that there should be more concerning in providing the information and education in dental trauma management for primary school teachers.