Kap survey among dental practitioners on the oral manifestation of measles

Author: 
Monica antony., Dhanraj and Suresh Bhat

Background: Measles is a highly contagious, viral infectious disease affecting mainly children and young adults. It is characterised by high fever, maculopapular rash, keratoconjunctivitis and pathognomic oral koplik spots. Complications with measles are relatively common, ranging from mild complications such as pneumonia. Children are immunised against measles at 12 months. The vaccination is generally not given before this age because such infants respond inadequately to the vaccine due to an immature immune system.

Aim: To view the various symptoms, signs, treatments and complications faced by the dental practitioners while treating patients affected with measles.

Objective: To view how the symptoms and signs may vary from patient to patient and how the dental practitioners overcome these situations.

Methodology: This was a survey based study, done using an online form, surveyPlanet. The survey was circulated among the oral practitioners of Bahrain and 100 of them filled the forms. The obtained results were tallied and evaluated.

Results: From the survey conducted it is evident that the dentists of Bahrain are not exposed to a lot of measles patients and are hence not very confident of the treatments and hence the complications.

Conclusion: Even though patients with measles approach a general physician usually there may be chances that a dentist recognises the symptoms at the initial stage.More campaigns and conferences can be held to give more knowledge to the dental practitioners. Clinical records of previous patients should be maintained so that they can be used as references. This will help spread awareness among the practitioners.

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