Attitude of Indian dental professionals toward scientific publications: A questionnaire based study.

Abstract

Background:Due to competitiveness and academic benefits, most dental professionals feel an urgent need to increase their publications. Hence, we explored the attitude of students and faculty members toward scientific publications through a questionnaire.Materials and Methods:A questionnaire consisting of 13 questions was sent by e-mails and posting the printed copies to dental postgraduate (PG) students (second and third year) and faculty members (n = 500 each). The returned completed questionnaires were analyzed.Results:About 37% of dental PG faculty and 35.6% PG students responded to the questionnaire, with overall response of 72.6%. Among the PG faculty, professors (P) had more scientific publications, followed by senior lecturers (SL) and readers (R). The publications as first or corresponding author were less among both faculty and PG students while co-authorship was more among PG students compared to faculty members. Awareness about the term “plagiarism” was overall high and relatively highest among R, followed by SL, P and PG students. The percentage of publications in fee charging journals was more among PG students than faculty members and self-funding for publication was observed in 86.4% of PG students and 94-100% among faculty members.Conclusion:About 72.6% of dental professionals were involved in publishing of their research work and the number of publications increased steadily with an increase in their academic experience. All the dental professionals concurred publications as the criteria for academic excellence.