Hypertension is one of the most common comorbidities in Malaysia mandating the need for screening prior to dental treatment to identify undiagnosed cases and ensure safe delivery of care. A standard protocol is imperative to guide dental practitioners to manage their patients based on the blood pressure readings. This study identifies the prevalence of known and unknown cases of hypertension in patients attending Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM) Dental Clinic and proposed a working clinical algorithm to be used for dental patients with abnormal blood pressure. It involves a retrospective study of 386 patients from the year 2017 until 2021. All data were analysed using Statistical Program for Social Science (SPSS) version 28.0. A literature review was also done to construct a clinical algorithm. The prevalence of patients with known hypertension in our study is 33.2% and 29.8% of them presented with unknown elevated blood pressure reading. Only 9.3% of uncontrolled and unknown cases were actually given referral for medical assessment. The presence of patients unaware of their possible hypertensive condition warrants the need for screening prior to dental treatment, hence the need for a standard protocol for all dental practitioners.

The aim of this study was to obtain data of medical emergencies at the non-hospital based private dental practices in Petaling district of Selangor, Malaysia. Ninety out of 281 identified main practitioners of non-hospital based private dental practices had agreed to participate. A standardised questionnaire forms consisting of four parts including demographic data, emergency equipment and drugs available, occurrence of medical emergencies and training of dental practitioners. All data retrieved were analysed using the Statistical Programme for Social Science (SPSS) version 22.0 (SPSS Inc., 1999). Some of the clinics (28.9%) had reported experiencing medical emergencies events. The most common emergency event noted was syncope (42.2%), followed by hypoglycaemia (27.7%). Majority of the events occurred in the dental surgery room (84.3%), after completion of treatment (31.3%) and were associated with dental extraction procedures (61.4%). Only nine of the clinics (3.3%) were equipped with emergency trolley and none were prepared with a defibrillator or automated external defibrillator (AED). It was also found that 32.3% of all clinics do not have any emergency drugs. All of the practitioners received basic life support training before graduation and 52.2% received supplementary training after graduation. In conclusion, emergency medical events do occur, but majority of dental practices involved in this study were not well equipped to manage these emergencies. It is important to have a standardised national guideline to ensure a safe and well-prepared dental setting during any adverse medical events.