Physicians’ knowledge of and adherence to improving oral health

BACKGROUND: Integration of oral health promotion into general health care has been highly recommended by the World Health Organization. Primary-care physicians can as part of their general health care promote and contribute to improved oral health care. Our aim was to investigate primary-care physic...

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Autores principales: Rabiei, Sepideh, Mohebbi, Simin Z, Patja, Kristiina, Virtanen, Jorma I
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3503732/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23046660
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-12-855
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author Rabiei, Sepideh
Mohebbi, Simin Z
Patja, Kristiina
Virtanen, Jorma I
author_facet Rabiei, Sepideh
Mohebbi, Simin Z
Patja, Kristiina
Virtanen, Jorma I
author_sort Rabiei, Sepideh
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Integration of oral health promotion into general health care has been highly recommended by the World Health Organization. Primary-care physicians can as part of their general health care promote and contribute to improved oral health care. Our aim was to investigate primary-care physicians’ knowledge of oral health, their attitudes toward delivering oral health care (OHC), and their willingness to obtain more education in this field. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional survey of all primary-care physicians working in the public health centers of Tehran city. An anonymous self-administered questionnaire queried their knowledge in pediatric- and general medicine-related areas of dentistry, providing knowledge scores to be calculated for three domains. The physicians’ attitudes toward OHC and willingness to pursue continuous education underwent evaluation with statements utilizing a 5-point Likert scale. Totally, 220 physicians took part in the survey (response rate: 92%). Chi-square test, linear and logistic regression, and t-test served for statistical analyses. RESULTS: The physicians’ knowledge score was significantly lower in the pediatric domain than in the dental and medical domains (p < 0.001). The number of physicians answering correctly to the pediatric questions was less than 40%. Almost all physicians (95%) reported it necessary for a physician to know about OHC and admitted (78%) that physicians’ general knowledge in this field is inadequate. Further, 77% of the physicians expressed a will to implement preventive oral health activities in their practice, and almost two-thirds (62%) of them showed a willingness to pursue further education about OHC. Those with higher knowledge scores had a greater willingness to deliver oral health care to their patients. CONCLUSIONS: Physicians’ lack of knowledge of OHC and their generally positive attitudes toward it revealed a great need for planning of a continuous medical education program in primary care.
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spelling pubmed-35037322012-11-22 Physicians’ knowledge of and adherence to improving oral health Rabiei, Sepideh Mohebbi, Simin Z Patja, Kristiina Virtanen, Jorma I BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Integration of oral health promotion into general health care has been highly recommended by the World Health Organization. Primary-care physicians can as part of their general health care promote and contribute to improved oral health care. Our aim was to investigate primary-care physicians’ knowledge of oral health, their attitudes toward delivering oral health care (OHC), and their willingness to obtain more education in this field. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional survey of all primary-care physicians working in the public health centers of Tehran city. An anonymous self-administered questionnaire queried their knowledge in pediatric- and general medicine-related areas of dentistry, providing knowledge scores to be calculated for three domains. The physicians’ attitudes toward OHC and willingness to pursue continuous education underwent evaluation with statements utilizing a 5-point Likert scale. Totally, 220 physicians took part in the survey (response rate: 92%). Chi-square test, linear and logistic regression, and t-test served for statistical analyses. RESULTS: The physicians’ knowledge score was significantly lower in the pediatric domain than in the dental and medical domains (p < 0.001). The number of physicians answering correctly to the pediatric questions was less than 40%. Almost all physicians (95%) reported it necessary for a physician to know about OHC and admitted (78%) that physicians’ general knowledge in this field is inadequate. Further, 77% of the physicians expressed a will to implement preventive oral health activities in their practice, and almost two-thirds (62%) of them showed a willingness to pursue further education about OHC. Those with higher knowledge scores had a greater willingness to deliver oral health care to their patients. CONCLUSIONS: Physicians’ lack of knowledge of OHC and their generally positive attitudes toward it revealed a great need for planning of a continuous medical education program in primary care. BioMed Central 2012-10-09 /pmc/articles/PMC3503732/ /pubmed/23046660 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-12-855 Text en Copyright ©2012 Rabiei et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Rabiei, Sepideh
Mohebbi, Simin Z
Patja, Kristiina
Virtanen, Jorma I
Physicians’ knowledge of and adherence to improving oral health
title Physicians’ knowledge of and adherence to improving oral health
title_full Physicians’ knowledge of and adherence to improving oral health
title_fullStr Physicians’ knowledge of and adherence to improving oral health
title_full_unstemmed Physicians’ knowledge of and adherence to improving oral health
title_short Physicians’ knowledge of and adherence to improving oral health
title_sort physicians’ knowledge of and adherence to improving oral health
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3503732/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23046660
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-12-855
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