Abstract
Aim: This survey aimed to evaluate the awareness of forensic odontology (FO) subject among dental students, dental academicians (DAs), and dental practitioners (DPs) in Gujarat state. Materials and Methods: A questionnaire sheet containing 14 questions was answered by 607 participants consisting of dental students, DAs, and DPs in Gujarat. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the responses, and the results were presented as frequencies and percentages. The Chi‑square test was used to compare the responses among the groups, and the level of significance was set at P < 0.05. Results: A total of 607 participants answered the questionnaire form. Out of 212 UG students, 175 (82.5%) were aware of the FO branch and 181 (85.4%) agreed to FO as a promising field in dentistry. The majority of the undergraduate (UG) students agreed that FO should be taught as a separate subject at UG and postgraduate level. The majority of the participants (95.7%) agreed that dental evidence plays an important role in forensic cases. Nearly 80% of the respondents agreed for a separate PG course in FO and around 37% of them opted for MDS course in FO. Bitemark analysis and dental age estimations were considered the promising domains in FO by >80% of the participants. Conclusion: This questionnaire study was performed to analyze the awareness of FO among dental students, DPs, and DAs. The majority of the study participants were aware of FO. A thorough review of the literature on a similar topic was also done.
Highlights
The subject of forensic odontology (FO) is making stride to emerge as one of the major branches of forensic sciences and as a new speciality branch in dentistry
44.2% and 35.4% of the respondents were aware of the Indian Association of FO (IAFO) and Journal of Forensic Dental Sciences (JFDS), respectively
64% of the respondents were unaware of any forensic cases solved using dental evidence (Q. no. 5) and were not Subject of the question
Summary
The subject of forensic odontology (FO) is making stride to emerge as one of the major branches of forensic sciences and as a new speciality branch in dentistry. Some universities and institutions across India are offering formal training in FO.[2, 3] A systematic review of published studies evaluating the knowledge, awareness, attitude, and practice of FO among several stakeholders such as dental professionals, medical and dental students, legal professionals, and police workforce in India was done.[4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26] Most of the studies were conducted individually on single group, for example on dental students or dental practitioners (DPs), and only a few studies compared the responses between a diverse group of participants With this background, a questionnaire survey was designed to include dental students, dental academicians (DAs), and DPs to evaluate their response and to compare the responses among the groups in the state of Gujarat. The willing participants with signed consents were included in this study, and confidentiality was maintained
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