A Questionnaire-Based Study to Assess Knowledge and Awareness Regarding Cheiloscopy as a Forensic Odontology Diagnostic Tool Among Dental Professionals

Background: The lips are covered with grooves and wrinkles, which form a characteristic pattern called a "lip print. The study of lip prints is called cheiloscopy. Searching for lip prints in the crime scene investigation helps in personnel identification and establishment of the true nature of the crime. Objective: This study aimed to assess the knowledge and awareness of cheiloscopy among dental undergraduates, postgraduate students, and general dental practitioners. Materials and methods: This cross-sectional observational, descriptive, survey-based study was conducted among 320 dental professionals, which included undergraduates, graduates, postgraduate dental students, and general dental practitioners aged between 18 and 32 years. A self-administered structured questionnaire written in English and Arabic was distributed to all willing participants. The questionnaire included knowledge and awareness-based questions along with demographic details of the participants. The Chi-square and Fisher's exact tests were applied to find out the association between the characteristics of the study participants and their knowledge and awareness of forensic odontology. A p-value of 0.05 was considered significant for all the statistical tests using IBM Corp. Released 2017. IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 25.0. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp. Results: A total of 320 dental professionals completed the survey. The majority of participants (55.3%) were males (and 14.4% were females) between the ages of 23 and 27. Most of the participants were general dental practitioners (36.9%), followed by undergraduates (26.3%), graduates (8.8%), and postgraduates (18.1%). Cheiloscopy, the study of lip prints, was known to 36.6% of the participants. Whereas the majority of the participants (63.4%) were not aware of it. Postgraduate (46.7%) students had more knowledge as compared to undergraduates, graduates, and general dental practitioners. About 81.6% of the participants were not aware of the classification of lip prints by Tsuchihashi and Suzuki. Conclusion:Overall, there was a lack of knowledge and awareness of cheiloscopy among all study participants, although they had good knowledge of forensic odontology. Compared to undergraduates and graduates, postgraduate dentistry students showed a greater level of cheiloscopy knowledge and awareness. Comparatively to students, general dentists, however, lacked understanding and awareness of cheiloscopy. This condition, however, can be improved if necessary steps are taken to make forensic odontology a part of the dental curriculum in Saudi Arabia.