Medical emergency in dental practice: Defibrillation equipment of French dental surgeons

Cardiac arrest is a significant medical emergency that can occur in outpatient medical facilities. Early defibrillation has been demonstrated to be critical to an individual’s survival of a cardiac arrest. The 2010 guidelines of the European Resuscitation Council advocate that defibrillators should be available throughout outpatient medical facilities, including dental offices. Nevertheless, the underwhelming amount of available data showed that dental offices were under equipped with defibrillators. Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of defibrillation equipment in dental offices. Additionally, this assessment also surveyed non-equipped offices regarding their decisions to not have a defibrillator. Design and Subjects: We conducted a prospective study by contacting all dental offices in five randomly drawn French cities of different sizes (Paris, Besançon, Blois, Romorantin-Lanthenay and Gray). Main Results: Of the 1716 dental offices called, 1358 (79%) were joined and 24 preferred to not answer the questionnaire. Our study indicated only 41 offices (3.1%) were equipped with a defibrillator and 1212 (94%) of the dental offices lacking a defibrillator had no plans to obtain the equipment. The non-equipped practices stated that the device was expensive and not worthwhile as the primary reasons for not having defibrillation equipment. Conclusions: This study determined that despite the recommendation by the European Resuscitation Council, dental practices in France are under-equipped and reluctant to purchase defibrillation equipment. The possibility of sharing the expense of defibrillation equipment between residents and health professionals of a building and storing the device in an accessible location is suggested.