Introduction:

Medical emergencies occurring during dental care may pose a risk to the health of patients.

Objective:

Characterize medical emergencies experienced by dentists in their professional practice.

Methods:

A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted from January to March 2019. The study universe was the dentists of 12 of the 20 university dental clinics attached to the Dental School of Havana. The variables analyzed were occurrence of emergencies, specialty, frequency of medical emergencies, type of medical emergency, dental procedures and number of emergencies.

Results:

61.2% of the respondents stated that medical emergencies were not frequent, and 50.8% reported two medical emergencies. The most common emergencies were loss of consciousness (29.9%) and vasovagal syncope (25.2%).

Conclusions:

Medical emergencies may occur during dental care. The study addresses an area of dental practice not much dealt with in Cuba. During the performance of dental procedures, professionals play a leading role in the prevention of medical emergencies and their initial treatment. The epidemiological and clinical data about these events contributed by this research may serve as reference for other studies.

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