Awareness On Usage Of Lorazepam Among Dental Students And Practitioners

Abstract

Introduction: The use of sedatives has established efficacy and safety for managing anxiety regarding dental treatment. Fear and anxiety regarding dentistry continue to persist despite the modern advances in local anaesthetic agents.
Aim: To evaluate the awareness on usage of lorazepam among dental students and practitioners. Materials and Methods: In our study, a self structured questionnaire was prepared and distributed among dental students and practitioners through an online portal. The questionnaire had 10 questions regarding the awareness, uses, advantages and disadvantages of lorazepam. This study was approved by the Institutional ethical board. 100 responses were obtained through an online portal. All the responses were imported to excel and tabulated, data’s were imported to spss software, chi-square test was done. Results: Among 100 responders, 62 were UG students; 25 were PG students and 13 were practitioners.Out of 100 responders, 77% of them are aware of usage of lorazepam; 23% of them are not aware of usage of lorazepam.Out of 100 responders, only 40% of them have administered and used lorazepam clinically in their practice; the rest 60% of them are aware but have never used clinically.
Conclusion: Most of the responders are aware of the usage of lorazepam,it’s advantages and disadvantages but only few of them have used it clinically and experienced. Therefore, there is a greater need for raising awareness on usage of lorazepam clinically in dentistry as it is mainly used to manage anxious patients at recommended dose of. 1-4 mg/day. Among these 100 responders no UG students have used it in clinical practice but they are theoretically aware of it’s usage.