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. 2015 Mar;7(3):44-8.

Study of the Knowledge and Attitude about Principles and Practices of Orthodontic Treatment among General Dental Practitioners and Non-orthodontic Specialties

Murlidhar R Sastri  1 , Vijaysinh Ramchandra Tanpure  2 , Firoz Babu Palagi  3 , Sagar Kundlik Shinde  4 , Kapil Ladhe  5 , Tejaswin Polepalle  6
Affiliations

Study of the Knowledge and Attitude about Principles and Practices of Orthodontic Treatment among General Dental Practitioners and Non-orthodontic Specialties

Murlidhar R Sastri et al. J Int Oral Health. 2015 Mar.

Abstract

Background: General dental practitioners and non-orthodontic specialty can play an essential role of education and motivation of their patients about the principles and practice of orthodontic treatment; which can be very beneficial to the patient's lifestyle. It is, therefore, important to identify their level of knowledge and attitude toward orthodontic treatment. This study was planned to study this aspect in the form of comparative analysis in general dental practitioners and other specialties (except orthodontia) in dentistry.

Materials and methods: The study was done on 78 dentists, which was divided into two groups. Group I consisted of 46 general dental practitioners and Group II consisted of 32 non-orthodontic specialties. The study was carried out with the help of 21 questionnaires, which consisted of 13 questions of orthodontic knowledge and 08 questions about the attitude toward orthodontic practice. The scores were calculated, and statistical analysis was done with the help of IBM SPSS statistics 20, using Student's t-test.

Results: The comparative analysis showed highly significant difference of knowledge and attitude score between general dental practitioners and non-orthodontic specialties (Student's t-test, P < 0.001). Also the comparison was made between male and female practitioners, who showed more scores in case of male practitioners; but the difference was not significant statistically (Student's t-test, P > 0.01).

Conclusion: The results of the study were moderately satisfactory, and it showed the need for increased clinically oriented education of practice and concepts of orthodontic treatment.

Keywords: Attitude; knowledge; orthodontic treatment.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: None

Figures

Graph 1
Graph 1
Distribution of participants according to groups and sex.
Graph 2
Graph 2
Comparison of scores of knowledge and attitude of general dental practitioners and non-orthodontic specialties.
Graph 3
Graph 3
Comparison of the total score of knowledge and attitude between male and female participants of the study.
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