Knowledge, Attitude and Practice on Various Local Anesthesia Techniques for Maxillary Teeth Extractions Among Dental Students

Local anesthetic agents block the peripheral nerves and prevent the conduction of pain perception, making the treatment procedure easy and comfortable. Lidocaine is the most commonly used drug for induction of local anesthesia. Maxillary teeth extractions usually require up to five injections to obtain anesthesia of the hard and soft tissues. The Posterior superior alveolar, middle superior alveolar and anterior superior alveolar, greater palatine and nasopalatine blocks are used for anesthetizing the maxillary teeth. The study aims at assessing the knowledge and awareness of various local anesthetic techniques for maxillary teeth extractions. A questionnaire based survey was conducted in January 2020 among dental students. 150 dental students working in a private dental college and hospital participated in this study. The questionnaire consisted of 16 questions related to various local anesthetic techniques. The collected data was added in MS Excel and subjected to statistical analysis using SPSS software and Chi-square test was done. The results depicted that 28.67% of interns, 12% final years and 2 % of third years were aware of the various local anesthesia techniques for maxillary teeth extractions. 27.33% of interns, 16.67% of final years and 22% of third years preferred infiltration for maxillary teeth extractions whereas 11.33% of third years, 16.67% of final years and 12.67% of interns preferred nerve block techniques. 30% of interns and 26.67% of third years felt that nerve block is technique sensitive for maxillary teeth extractions. Within the limitation of the study it was seen that Interns had a good knowledge, attitude and practice on various local anesthesia techniques for maxillary teeth extractions when compared to the final and third years.