General Dentist's Practices on Dental Caries Prevention Services

The control patterns and policies of dental caries have been changed from treatment to preventive services. The purpose of this study was to determine practice of general dentists on preventive dental services in Tehran
A cross sectional descriptive-analytic study was designed and a self assessment questionnaire was developed on different aspects of preventive dentistry. It was given to general dentists participated in General Dental Practitioners Congress in Tehran and 290 of them filled and gave it back. Data was analyzed by SPSS software by linear regression.
Findings showed 19 dentists did not provide any health education to their patients while 133 (46.3%) presented it less than 5 minutes and 101 samples gave it 5 to 10 m. The most used subjects of health instructions were flossing (n=271, 93.4%), and tooth brushing (n=265, 91.4%). More than 72% of samples have done fluoride therapy always or occasionally for children. Almost one-fifth of them did not accept children for treatment. The dentists accepted kids presented more health instructions.
According to this study, the practice and attitudes of the participated general dentists regarding preventive dentistry services were appropriate, but it is established that training can be done for children. It showed that dentists, who accepted children for treatment, provide health education more than others. Therefore the issue of health education, and emphasizing its presentation, should be the first priority of all continuing education programs.