Basic life support: Knowledge and attitude among dental students and Staff in the College of Dentistry, King Saud University

Objective: To assess and compare the level of knowledge and attitude toward basic life support among bachelor of dental surgery clinical students (third-, fourth-, and fifth-year dental students), dental interns, postgraduate students and faculty in the Dental College at King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Material and methods: A previously validated self-select questionnaire was randomly distributed to the participants. The structured questionnaires consist of demographic data, knowledge and attitude of the participants related to basic life support. Results: 454 participants completed the surveys with response rate of 77.85%. The mean knowledge score for the participants was 5.99 with a median score of six. A highly statistically significant difference was detected among the different academic groups (analysis of variance ANOVA; F=9.756, P<0.001). The mean scores of the third-year students were significantly the highest, while fifth-year students showed the lowest knowledge score. The majority of the participants (93.6%) thought that dentists and dental students should know about basic life support and that it should be included in the undergraduate dental curriculum. Conclusion: Our findings demonstrate that dental students and staff had inadequate basic life support knowledge. However, they had positive attitudes toward it.