Perceived barriers to the provision of preventive care among dentists of Udaipur, India

Aim: To investigate the practice-, patient- and dentist related barriers to the provision of preventive dental care as perceived by dentists of Udaipur city, Rajasthan, India. Settings and Design:- A cross sectional descriptive survey was conducted among 120 dentists of Udaipur city, Rajasthan. Material and Methods: Mean Content Validity Ratio (CVR) was calculated as 0.87 based on the opinions expressed by a panel of total six academicians. Cronbach’s coefficient was found to be 0.88, which showed a high internal reliability of the questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of demographic questions and 12 specific research questions. Statistical analysis used:- Student’s t-test and ANOVA test were applied for the statistical evaluation of means. Level of significance was set at 0.05. Results: The barriers correlated strongly with each other (0.60 to 0.85). A significant gender difference was observed in mean sums of scores of practice and patient related barriers. Practice, dentist and patient related barriers for very much hindrance were reported by 8 to 13%, 5 to19% and 0 to 29% of the dentists respectively. A significant difference was observed among mean of sum scores of practice and patient related barriers with age and experience. Qualification was significantly related to practice related barriers. Conclusions: Perception of dentists showed that patient related barriers were found to be the foremost to the provision of preventive care. Also, dentist’s attitude towards health promotion and disease prevention needs a radical transformation. Key words:Dental care, dentists, patients, perception.