Assessment the knowledge of dental students of two universities of medical sciences and Islamic Azad University of Tabriz about how to manage cardiopulmonary emergencies

Abstract

Introduction: Cardiac arrest is one of the most common causes of death. And the occurrence of cardiac arrest and the need for cardiopulmonary resuscitation are not uncommon in dental offices. Therefore, dentists must be fully familiar with cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The purpose of this study was to investigate the knowledge of dental students of two universities of medical sciences and Islamic Azad University of Tabriz city about how to manage cardiopulmonary emergencies. Materials and methods: In this cross-sectional study, 110 final year dental students of dental schools in Tabriz (Medical and Islmic Azad) were randomly selected. The level of students' knowledge was evaluated by a self-administrated questionnaire whose validity and reliability were checked and confirmed. In addition to demographic characteristics, the questionnaire had 16 questions in the field of awareness, the answers were multiple-choice, and one point was given for each correct answer, and finally, the awareness score was calculated as the sum of the scores of the correct answers. Data analysis was done using spss version 21 software and t-test.

Results: The knowledge score in the medical university (8.03±2.18) was significantly higher than the Islamic Azad university (7.2±07.09). 36.4% of students had poor knowledge, 60.6% had average knowledge and 2.7% had good knowledge in the field of cardiopulmonary emergency management. There was no significant difference in students' knowledge about how to manage cardiopulmonary emergencies based on gender or academic semester.

Conclusion: The results of the present study showed the poor awareness and knowledge of dental students in Tabriz city (government and independent) in relation to cardiopulmonary resuscitation.