233 - Educating Teachers and Coaches on the Management of Dental Trauma

Objective: To investigate the benefit of educating teachers, coaches, and athletic trainers on dental trauma and improve the management of students/athletes with dental trauma.

Methods: Teachers, coaches, and athletic trainers across the city of Richmond were recruited via email. Participants answered a pre-seminar survey to evaluate their baseline knowledge and determine whether they have experienced dental trauma with their students/athletes previously. The participants were given the option to attend an in-person or virtual seminar educating them on the basic management of traumatic dental injuries and how to guide affected students/athletes and their families to obtain optimal care. A post-seminar survey asked the same questions as the pre-seminar survey to analyze their improvement and whether education guided by pediatric dentistry would be beneficial for teachers, coaches, and athletic trainers.

Results: A total of 44 teachers participated in the study. Fifteen percent reported having witnessed a dental injury while teaching or coaching and 95% reported feeling that teachers and coaches should have better education on preventing and handling dental injuries. Post training scores were significantly higher than pre-training scores by an average of 0.93 (95% CI: 0.43, 1.44, p=.0006), or about 1 additional question correct. The average number of correct responses was 1.9 at baseline compared to 2.8 after the training, both out of a possible 5 correct responses.

Conclusion: The study showed a low level of baseline knowledge among the teachers on the management dental traumatic injuries. It can be recommended that school teachers need further training on the appropriate management of traumatic dental injuries in children. The teachers acknowledged that they need more training on handling a dental trauma.