Evaluation of The Performance of the Undergraduate Students When Performing Pulpotomy on Primary Teeth

Abstract

Background & aim: Preserving primary teeth until their natural fall is the most important goal of modern dental practice in children, which includes preventive procedures of necrosis, malocclusion, trauma procedures , and restoration and treatment of the teeth, especially as the increase in the percentage of necrosis led to increased risk of pulp disease .

This study  aims to evaluate the work of students in the pre-graduation stage when conducting an pulpotomy on the primary teeth and find out the most common mistakes they face at any stage of the work to raise the scientific outcome to avoid such errors in addition to raising awareness of students in the  next stage to avoid these errors and reconciling projection the theoretical side on the clinical side.

Materials and methods:

This study was conducted for students of the fifth year (pre-graduation) on primary molar (first or second or upper or lower) indication for pulpotomy, where the number of students participating in this study 200 students divided into two groups.

All work was done using the rubber dam and using the same equipment available in the Department of Pediatrics at the Faculty of Dentistry at Damascus University.

The questionnaires and evaluation of each work were collected separately at all stages and steps of work to stop at the most common errors of students in processing pulpotomy to highlight them.

Results:

It was observed that there are several common mistakes among the students that reflect the lack of conciliation between the theory side and projection it on practice side (remains of the roof of the pulp cavity at 7%, remains of caries at 17.5%, the seal is not suitable at 25%, the case of perforation in the bottom of the pulp cavity at 7%, the lack of margins at 8%, reverse overlap at 58%, amalgam  residues in gingival sulcus 51.5%) .

Conclusions: After the current survey, several frequent errors were found with students. The most common are the presence of overhang in the amalgam fillings and the presence of amalgam  residues in labial and lingual gingival sulcus.