Abstract
The safety of diagnostic imaging during pregnancy is an important aspect for all clinicians. Pregnant women often do not receive proper dental care as the dentists are not aware of low diagnostic radiation doses involved in dental radiation. To assess awareness of radiation risks on pregnant women among dentists of Ghaziabad city. A total of 268 practicing dentists in Ghaziabad were selected for a questionnaire based cross-sectional study. Data consisted of 18 questions which assessed the knowledge, attitude and practice of dental professionals regarding radiation risks on pregnant women. The questionnaire was distributed and collected personally by the principal investigator. Data was analyzed by Mann Whitney U test and chi-square test. The level of significance was set at p ≤ 0.05. The results showed that the dentists who had attended continuing dental education program had increased level of knowledge regarding radiation effects among pregnant women as compared to the dentists who had not attended continuing dental education programs (p<0.05). Among them who had attended continuing dental education programs 93.3% were aware of the safe dose of radiation and 62% were aware of threshold radiation doses of pregnancy termination. On the contrary there was no significant difference in the knowledge, attitude and practice scores regarding radiation risks on pregnant women based on their academic qualification (p≥0.05). The level of knowledge among dentists was found to be satisfactory, this outcome shows that continuing dental education regarding radiation protection principles and its risks on pregnant women is required to ensure maximum safety both for clinician as well as pregnant women.
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