Abstract:

Objective This study aimed to evaluate and analyze the current situation of dentists in Guangdong pro-vince regarding the management of avulsed incisors, thereby providing a reference for making treatment strategies for avulsed incisors in the future. Methods A total of 712 dentists with different educational backgrounds and working conditions in Guangdong province were randomly selected to conduct an online questionnaire survey on the cognition of children with avulsed incisors from April 2022 to May 2022. The data were recorded by Excel software and statistics were analyzed on Stata/SE 15.1. Results A total of 712 dentists were investigated and 701 questionnaires were collected (98.46%). In addition, 65.9% of investigators came from the Department of Stomatology in a First-class Hospital or Stomatological Hospital. The results showed that the average number of avulsed teeth consulted by dentists was less than 20 per year. Although 99.7% of respondents considered normal saline as a suitable storage medium, 3.1% and 23.8% of them had a misunderstanding that the tap/alcohol could be used for root cleaning. Moreover, 93.4% was the correct selection rate of the treatment plan for processing on root surfaces before replanting by investigators. The correct selection rate of the duration using elastic fixation was only 10.7%. Meanwhile, 42.9% of investigators refused to inoculate tetanus immunoglobulin after teeth replanting. Emergency management of dental avulsion (EM) and clinical management of dental avulsion (CM) answered correctly with average scores of 14.60±11.85 and 14.48±2.67, respectively. Multivariate linear regression analysis revealed that working years were negatively correlated with EM and CM scores (P<0.05). There was a positive correlation between CM and EM scores with the number of avulsion cases treated by physicians each year (P<0.05). In terms of the EM score of dentists’ learning attitude, investigators who had received enough knowledge were higher than those who had not and insufficient knowledge reserved, and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.05). The scores of investigators who thought they had a certain degree of knowledge about dental trauma were higher than those who thought they “did not understand”, and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.05). In terms of CM scores, investigators who thought the knowledge of dental trauma was “very helpful” had higher scores than those who thought it was “not helpful”, and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.05). The scores of the investigators who thought they had “relatively sufficient knowledge” of dental trauma were higher than those who thought they had “no knowledge” or “insufficient know-ledge”, and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.05). Conclusion The overall accuracy of the management of avulsed incisors among dentists was low in Guangdong province. Dentists were more likely to have a higher rate of accuracy choice in treatment options for luxation injury and avulsion to enhance the prognosis of replanted teeth.

Key words: dentists, cognition, avulsed permanent incisor, survey