Abstract
Objective: The aim of the study is to assess knowledge, attitude and practices of dental implants among dental interns in Saudi Arabia Materials and Methods: A self-designed, close-ended questionnaire was distributed among 205 interns chosen by stratified random sampling technique. The questionnaire consisted of 28 items pertaining to demographic characteristics, knowledge and practices of dental implants. Responses were coded and entered into spreadsheet software (Microsoft Excel 16.0.) and analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS, IBM Version 22.0) and contingency tables and chi-square test (χ2). Results: The majority of the participants were males (64.4%), between 24-26 years of age (64%) and had a GPA between 4-5 (63.4%). The majority of the participants gained knowledge of dental implants through theoretical lectures (98.5%), and most of them (80%) knew, what material, an implant was made up of. Almost all participants (91.7%) knew that dental implants had surface modifications. Most (64.4%) believed that case selection is the most important criteria for the success of dental implant therapy, and this differed significantly among participants with respect to GPA (p=0.03). Many participants (60%) believed that the most important advantage of dental implants over fixed prosthesis is that reduction of adjacent tooth is not needed, and this differed significantly between males and females (p=0.026). There was a significant difference (p<0.001) between males and females when it came to confidence in independently restoring teeth using dental implants. 63% of the participants were confident to use dental implants in their future practice. Conclusion: Knowledge of dental implants among dental interns is satisfactory, but this study reveals that participants lack practical experience and would like to acquire more clinical skills. Limitations: The response rate of participants from each university was low, which made comparisons between different universities difficult because sample size from some universities was very small, which could not produce statistically accurate results.
Highlights
The present study aims to expand to all these institutions and is a multi-center study that aims to assess the knowledge, attitudes and practices of dental implant therapy among dental interns in all the institutions of Saudi Arabia
The results show that 63.4% of participants in this survey had a grade point average (GPA) between 4 and 5, while 35.1% a GPA of 3 – 4
The majority of the participants (93.2%) did not place dental implants independently during their undergraduate training. This is much different from another multicenter study done in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2017, which reported that 47.1% of dental interns had done dental implant procedures [24]
Summary
There has been a surge in interest for dental implants among general dental practitioners as well, who have been vying to train themselves in this treatment modality and expand their skill set [11]. This calls for an increase in implant theory, clinical and didactic training in pre-doctoral and undergraduate dental education. Even until 2010, the worldwide pre-doctoral implant training was reported to be only 69% of schools surveyed [19] This shows that there are still institutions and colleges that have not integrated dental implant education into their curriculum
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