KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICES ABOUT MEDICAL EMERGENCIES AMONG DENTAL HOUSE OFFICERS WORKING IN TWO DENTAL COLLEGES

Abstract

Study was carried out to assess the knowledge, skills and perceptions regarding the management of medical emergencies amongst house officers of Private and Public Dental College of Karachi. A cross sectional study was done at private and public dental colleges from March 2018 to September 2018. A pretested closed ended questionnaire consisting of three sections was used in which knowledge of the house officers on management of medical emergency, evaluation of skills they can perform during occurrence of medical emergency and their perceptions regarding the betterment of emergency management was assessed. Collected data were analysed using SPSS version 16. Out of 150 house officers, 131(87.3%) responded to the questionnaire. The results showed 45% received Basic life support (BLS) training. Only 71.8% of the house officers encountered 1-5 medical emergencies during their dental life. Syncope was found to be most common (67.2%) among all. In assessment of practices of dental house officers, most of them can take pulse (96.2%), blood pressure (99.2%) and blood/sugar glucose level (90.8%), but few of them can perform abdominal thrust (35.1%), maintain Intravenous line (20.6%) and perform Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation (44.3%). Only 16.03% of house officers think that their undergraduate training is enough to prepare them to manage medical emergencies. While 87.7 think that house officers should undergo medical emergency training prior to starting their house job. Within the limitation of the study, it was concluded that practical training about management of medical emergencies among house officers was inadequate. Dental education departments responsible for making courses should update quality of training for managing the medical emergencies.