A departing mystery: dementia related knowledge and attitude among dental professionals in Chennai

Abstract

Background: Improving dentist’s knowledge, perceptions and attitudes of dementia is important in the formation of dementia-friendly communities. The aim of the study was to evaluate dentist’s knowledge and attitudes of dementia. The purpose of this study was to examine dentist’s, interns, postgraduate’s knowledge and attitudes towards dementia and to provide basic data for educating about knowledge of dementia and strengthening positive attitudes towards dementia related patients.Methods: One hundred and ten dentists, dental post graduates, interns aged 22-46 years, from dental schools in Tamil Nadu were invited to complete a series of questions that assessed their dementia knowledge and attitudes.Results: A total of 110 dentists completed the questionnaire. Out of 24 questions on dementia knowledge and attitude, participants were on average able to answer less than half correctly. Responses to the attitude’s questionnaire showed that dentists had both positive and negative attitudes toward dementia.Conclusions: There is scope for dentists to improve their dementia knowledge and attitudes. Until a validated measure of dementia knowledge has been developed specifically for an dentist sample, researchers should avoid summary statistics (i.e.; total score) and instead focus on interrogating where the gaps in knowledge.