CONTEMPORARY DENTAL CARIES MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS IN PAEDIATRIC DENTISTRY : A SURVEY OF AWARENESS AND PRACTICE OF A GROUP OF GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL DENTISTS
Original Articles clinical issues have had direct impact upon clinical treatment of child patients and are of interest , not only to specialists in paediatric dentistry , but general dental practitioners alike . While the debate has been , and still is , ongoing in the dental literature , 8 , 9 the opinions of those treating children in the dental community in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries ( GCC ) had not been assessed . What were the opinions of dentists about these changing new concepts ? As the United Arab Emirates ( UAE ) and the State of Kuwait ( SoK ) are representative nations in the GCC ( along with Saudi Arabia , Oman , Qatar and Bahrain ) which have dental practitioners from many different backgrounds , the aim of this paper was to surveyby means of a questionnaire- the dental awareness and practice of dentists in GCC countries of the above concepts . It was hypothesised that GCC dentists ; a ) agreed on treatment options for RCM when faced with a non-pulpally involved carious primary molar in a cooperative child , b ) agreed on the PM used in a primary molar pulpotomy , c ) were aware of the HT , d ) had practiced the HT and e ) agreed to the concept of SDC in primary and permanent teeth .
2 . Materials and methods 2.1 . Design The study was designed as a cross-sectional survey . Data was collected by the authors and postgraduates ( the surveyors ) from Hamdan Bin Mohamed College of Dental Medicine ( HBMCDM ) in Dubai , UAE . The participants were dental professionals ( General Dental Practitioners / Interns [ GDPs ], and Paediatric Dentists [ PDs ]) attending paediatric dentistry postgraduate conferences held at various institutions in the UAE and SoK namely HBMCDM in Dubai ( UAE ) and Ras AlKhaima Dental College , Ras AlKhaima ( UAE ) and the Kuwait Health Ministry , Kuwait city , ( SoK ). The aim was to investigate their awareness and practice of RCM , HT , choice of PM and SDC concepts outlined above . The reason behind the choice of events was to capture the views of a cross section of dentists dealing with children from various areas in the GCC . 2.2 . Sample selection The sample was a convenience sample selected during the aforementioned dental activities during 2015 . At registration time randomised participants were invited by the surveyors from HBMCDM , to participate in the survey by filling a questionnaire . In both countries a total of 315 attendees were invited to participate . Participants were allowed to complete the questionnaire once only , thus avoiding duplicate entries . 2.3 . Ethical matters All participants were informed of the objectives and confidential nature of the survey and that there would be no negative consequences for declining to participate even if they agreed initially . Hence , they freely consented to participate in the survey . Ethical approval of the work was obtained from the Ethics Committee of HBMCDM ( approval ERC / DCDM 11 / 14 ) and approval of the event organisers of the activities in both SoK and UAE . 2.4 . Questionnaire A size A4 sheet questionnaire was designed by the authors and was administered to all participants involved in the study . The questionnaire , was piloted and tested amongst the paediatric dentistry staff and postgraduates of HBMCDM ( 10 members ) ( Fig . 1 and Table 1 ) and was found to be reliable and consistent ( Cronbach ’ s alpha = 0.66 ). They were not included in the final sample . The questionnaire included : - A section capturing demographic data ( age , gender , specialty , country of practice , years in practice and country of qualification ); - Six questions items covered the previously highlighted topics RCM , HT , PM and SDC ( Fig . 1 and Table 1 ). 2.5 . Data analysis The survey sheets were completed anonymously . The returned questionnaires were collected by the surveyors and incomplete questionnaires were excluded from the study . The data collected was uploaded into a Microsoft Office 2010 Excel © sheet and data analysis was carried out using SPSS © statistical software Statistical Package of Social Science ( SPSS Inc .; Chicago , Illinois ) version 21 was used for data management and analysis . Descriptive statistics including frequencies , means , median , and standard deviation were performed to give general descriptions of the data . Chi-square test was performed to test the dependency between variables . The level of statistical significance was set at 5 %.
3 . Results Out of a total of 315 attendees invited to take part in the survey , 202 verbally expressed willingness to participate and were issued the questionnaire sheets . However only 159 actually participated , completed and returned the questionnaires to the surveyors . Nine surveys with incomplete fields were excluded ; therefore , the total number of those surveyed was 150 dentists ( a return rate of 74.2 %). The demographic breakdown of those surveyed , was as follows : Out of the total number of those surveyed ( N = 150 ), the majority of them were GDPs ( n = 119 , 79.3 %) while 20.7 % ( n = 31 ) were PDs . The majority were female dentists ( 70.7 %, n = 106 ) and the rest were males ( n = 44 , 29.3 %). The mean age was 30.5 (± 6.5 ) years and the range was 23-60 . The dominant age group was between 20-30 years ( n = 96 , 64 %). The countries of practice were UAE ( n = 79 , 52.7 %) followed by Kuwait ( n = 35 , 23.4 %), the remaining dentists were working out with these two countries but within the GCC [ 29 from Saudi Arabia ( 19.3 %), 3 from Bahrain ( 2 %), and 2 ( 1.3 %) from each of Qatar and Oman ]. The median of years of practice was 4 years and the range was1- 30 years . Countries of qualification were various but were regrouped into Arab countries ( 50.6 %,
28 Stoma Edu J . 2017 ; 4 ( 1 ): 27-38 . http :// www . stomaeduj . com