Assessment of dentists and dental students’ level of knowledge in the management of individuals using oral anticoagulants

Abstract Introduction Cardiovascular diseases have a high incidence and due to that there is a large amount of patients who take medications for prevention and treatment of these disorders. Consequently, the number of people to be submitted to dental treatment and also under oral anticoagulant therapy is increasing and the management of these individuals requires a careful evaluation of the clinical condition and the procedure to be performed. Objective To evaluate the level of knowledge of dentists and undergraduate dental students in the management of individuals using oral anticoagulants to be submitted to dental treatment. Material and method Descriptive, quantitative, cross-sectional study based on a questionnaire answered by 100 individuals (70 dentists and 30 undergraduate dental students), chosen for convenience to evaluate their knowledge about the proposed topic. To compare the quantitative variables, the Student's T test was used to compare two samples and the ANOVA test with Bonferroni's post test to compare three samples. Result Among the interviewees, 74.5% of dental surgeons and 54.2% of undergraduates reported having attended a patient under oral anticoagulant therapy. There was no statistical difference regarding the performance between professionals and students in the dental management of patients taking anticoagulants. Among the group of dental surgeons, the professionals of the bucomaxillofacial surgery and those who had multiprofessional residency presented better performance when compared to the general practitioners. Conclusion The management of patients using oral anticoagulants stills a challenge for the groups studied.