Iranian Dentit's Knowledge of Antibiotic Prophylaxis Guidelines for Prevention of Bacterial Endocarditis

Statement of Problems: Bacterial endocarditis is a rare disease that resulted to the death and morbidity in children and young people about 55% to 65%. Since many dental treatments can create the bacterial endocarditis, thereby antibiotic prophylaxis with appropriate treatment modaliteis by dentist is very important and necessary for prevention. The purpose of this study was to investigate the knowledge of a group of Iranian dentists about antibiotic prophylaxis guidelines for bacterial endocarditis. In this descriptive and cross sectional study, the population under consideration were the dentists participated in the fifth International Congress of Pediatric Dentistry (summer 2006), selected with simple sampling methods. The data was collected by questionnaires completed by the selected dentists. For data analysis, t-test and spierman with the SPSS 13.5 program were used. Participted in this study were 85 dentists. The results showed that, previous bacterial endocarditis, rheumatic heart disease and mitral valve prolapse with valvular regurgitation, were diagnosed by the dentists to be the most common situations which need antibiotic prophylaxis. Also the most common treatment procedures for which antibiotic prophylaxy is needed, were tooth extraction and subginginval cord respectively. More than half of the dentists (68.3%) prefer use of amoxycillin as a prophylactic medicament. Overall mean knowledge score of the dentists was 37.4±14.3. Due to the present findings to improve knowledge and attitude, it seems necessary for dentists to take participate in educational programs on the bacterial endocarditis.