The Competenceof Dental Staff and Students to Deal with Medical Emergencies at UQUDENT

Medical emergencies are among the most common events that occur during dental practice. The present study was conducted to investigate the competence of dental staff and dental students to deal with medical emergencies at Umm Al-Qura University Dental Teaching Hospital. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to collect data from dental staff and students characterized according to gender and occupation. All collected data were coded, entered and analyzed by means of SPSS based on the Chi-square test. In total, 162 persons participated, 61 males and 101 females. Of these, 74 % had received training to prepare them to deal with medical emergencies, and 63 % of them had taken the Basic Life Support (BLS) course. Of all participants, 73.1 % believed that they are very to fairly well-prepared to manage medical emergencies, and nearly 87 % believed that hands-on courses could improve their preparedness in managing medical emergencies. Further, hands-on investigative studies [in a real or simulated medical emergency] are recommended to measure the actual competence of these individuals to deal with medical emergencies.