Assessment of knowledge and attitude before and after a health education program in East Madurai primary school teachers with regard to emergency management of avulsed teeth.

INTRODUCTION: Children attend primary school from as early as 6 years to the mixed dentition stage of about 9 years and spend most of their time in school along with the teachers. School teachers are likely to be among the first to see a child immediately after an injury has occurred, and their knowledge regarding emergency procedures is critical to ensure good prognosis of the clinical treatment.

PURPOSE: The purpose of the study was to evaluate, by means of a questionnaire, the primary school teacher's knowledge and attitude with regard to emergency management of traumatized avulsed teeth and to test the effectiveness of a health education tool.

METHODOLOGY: A total of 214 primary school teachers from 24 government schools, in and around East Madurai Panchayat, participated in a 3-month long study. Baseline data were collected using a pretested questionnaire in the 1st month. Based on that data, a health educational tool was prepared. The final assessment was made using the same questionnaire in the 3rd month. Baseline data and final data were compared using Z-test.

RESULTS: The knowledge level of 70.83% of primary school teachers was in the very good category after the health education tool, which was initially nil. Similarly, the attitude level also raised drastically with 0.90% initially in the very good category, and after the health education tool, it was 41.20%.

CONCLUSION: From this study, the importance of the need for the steps to increase the knowledge about the emergency management of avulsion is clearly understood. Thus, the main implication of the study is that a health educational tool regarding the emergency management of avulsion is necessary for the primary school teachers during their teacher training program.