Background: Conscious sedation or general anaesthesia are the primary treatment options that allows comprehensive restorative dental care. Because of the risks and costs involved with general anaesthesia, conscious sedation is often the option of first choice. Conscious sedation is usually safe. However, if too much of the medicines given, problems with breathing may occur in the patient. Many children undergoing minor procedures need effective sedation, or anaesthesia, because they are frightened, in pain, ill, or have behavioural problems. Some procedures are very common and anaesthetists should know what sedation techniques are effective and likely to be used by other healthcare practitioner.
Aim: To create awareness among dental practitioners about the conscious sedation in children.
Materials and Methods: Questionnaire based cross-sectional study was conducted among 120 dental students to evaluate the conscious sedation in children.A self-assessed questions comprising of 12 questions was given to the participants .The questions comprised of 3 set of questions under the category of knowledge, 6 under attitude and 3 questions under practise.The obtained data were analysed as % calculation.
Results: 80% of dental practitioners have adequate knowledge, 20% are not aware of conscious sedation, 73% of dental practitioners shows good attitude towards conscious sedation whereas 27% do not and 90% of dental practitioners are not practising conscious sedation in children whereas 10 % are practising.
Conclusion: Conscious sedation is an integral part of dental practise. Teaching should also be done in undergraduate level so that effective sedation can be offered in future with good skills and confidence during practise.