Assessment of knowledge and attitude of Rafsanjan primary school health instructors about management of traumatic tooth avulsion among in 2020-2021

There is a close relationship between immediate and correct management of dental trauma and its prognosis. The health educators are often the first people in contact with children in this places, so their awareness of how to deal with these injuries plays an important role in prevention and treatment of dental trauma. This study aimed to evaluate the knowledge of health educators in confrontation with dental injuries in primary schools of Rafsanjan in 2020.

 In this cross-sectional study, all of 32 health instructors in primary schools of Rafsanjan were identified. After completing questionnaires, collected data from 30 health instructors were analyzed. In order to test the research hypotheses, Multiple regression, Non-parametric tests of spearman's rank correlation coefficient, Mann-Whitney and kruskal-wallis were utilized using SPSS software version 20.

The mean knowledge and attitude scores of health educators related to management of avulsion were 14.2±6.6 and 22.3 ± 65/41 respectively. There was no significant statistical correlation between knowledge score and age, work experience and education level and experience dealing with an avulsion (P>0.05). In this study, the knowledge score of the health educators who had passed the training was statistically higher than others (P<0.001).

The results show insufficient knowledge of health educators about the management of dental trauma and the need to use strategies to improve the knowledge of health educators in this field. Because increasing awareness leads to better prognosis in dental traumas; it is necessary to hold training courses to increase the awareness of health educators.