Knowledge and awareness on administration of local anesthesia and its various complications faced by undergraduate and postgraduate dental students - a cross sectional study

Abstract

Local anaesthetics are an inseparable part of dental practice. Local anesthesia helps in relieving pain of the patient and also makes the comfortable during the dental procedure.also makes it painless as possible. Although they are effective in controlling pain, without proper knowledge of the safe dose and methods of administration inevitable complications arise. This study was done to assess knowledge and awareness of dental students on administration of local anesthesia and its various complications. An online survey was conducted with the help of Google forms was distributed to 103 undergraduate students pursuing dentistry. The questionnaire consisted of 15 questions that were based on dosage, administration and complication of local anesthesia. After obtaining the responses, data was tabulated in excel sheet and was subjected to statistical analysis. Results show that 40.8% agree that 4.4 mg/kg is the maximum dosage of 2% lidocaine with adrenaline, 45.6% students agree the importance of aspiration. 24.3% students know the complication of transient amaurosis to be blindness. 34% students know that ocular complications arise due to local anesthetic administration. No statistically significant difference noticed with the responses based on gender and educational status (p-value > 0.05). The overall knowledge and awareness about local anesthesia and its complications were only moderate among the undergraduate and postgraduate dental students. Postgraduates showed a better knowledge when compared to undergraduates.