Knowledge and attitudes about oral cancer among dentists in Spain

Abstract

Detecting oral cancer (OC) at an early stage is the most effective means of improving survival and reducing morbility from disease. The objective was to study the knowledge, opinions and attitudes held by general dentists in Spain regarding aspects of OC in general clinic practice. A 44-item questionnaire relating to OC was randomly distributed by email to 1000 dentists in the different autonomous communities in Spain. The response rate was 42.7%. Only 49.7% of the dentists who replied considered themselves to have up-to-date knowledge on OC. A total of 94.7% of those interviewed hold the opinion that it is the dentists who are qualified to carry out the oral examination. In addition, 41.8% felt that family doctors and 13.8% that dental hygienists were also capable of making this examination. We should highlight that dentists who rated their undergraduate OC training favourably were more likely to agree that their OC knowledge was current than those who rated their undergraduate training unfavourably [odds ratio (OR) = 4.1, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.1-4.2, P = 0.019). Respondents who performed oral cancer examinations on all patients 40 years of age or older were 1.8 times more likely to agree that their OC knowledge was current; however, the differences were not significant (OR = 1.3, 95% CI = 0.6-2.7, P = 0.392). Gaps in knowledge exist, strongly suggesting the need for continued courses of education detection and prevention of OC.