A Study to assess the awareness and use of Silver Diammine Fluoride and Hall Technique among dental professionals and dental students in the Eastern Province

BACKGROUND: A major shift has occured in the trend of dealing with dental caries from primary to secondary prevention, specially after SDF approval off-label by US FDA in recent years and Hall Technique (HT) in the last decade. OBJECTIVES: To determine the frequency of awareness and use of Silver Diammine Fluoride (SDF) and Hall technique among dental professionals in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted in a public hospital, metropolitan city of Middle Eastern region between March 15, 2019 & January 31, 2020. Dental practitioners were requested, with their consent, to fill up a digitally designed survey. Chi-square test on SPSS-20.0 was applied to compare frequency of awareness and use of SDF and HALL Technique among the survey participants. RESULTS: The awareness of SDF was found to be 73.6% among specialists, 54.9% among graduates and 29.6% among students whereas awareness of HALL technique for stainless steel crown in pediatric dentistry was found statistically similar in all participants groups i.e. 42.7% in students, 55.5% in graduates and 54.9% in specialist group (p = 0.125). CONCLUSION: The results show potential with regards to awareness of dental specialists & postgraduate residents but inadequate among general dentists and students though all were keen advocates and found committed to its use to help the community. It points towards a further need of the of education for all groups. Those non- invasive techniques are very useful tools in general but specifically during Covid-19 pandemic where they can play a major role in preventing the spread of infection, arresting decay, alleviating pain and anxiety without resorting to aggressive treatment like pulp treatment/extraction. Low response rate may be improved in future through the respondents’ counselling and regular follow up.