Knowledge and Practice of Immediate Dentures among the Dentists in Private Clinics in Khartoum State
Asst. Prof. Okasha Hassan1, Assoc. Prof. Fadia Awadalkreem2
1 University of Khartoum,
2 RAK college of dental sciences
Objectives
To assess the awareness and practice of Immediate Dentures among the dentists who work in the private clinics in Khartoum state, Sudan.
Materials and Methods
A descriptive cross-sectional questionnaire-based study was conducted among the dental medical officers, registrars, specialists, and consultants who are working in private clinics and centers in Khartoum state and registered the private medical institutions in Sudan. The sample population was 664, using the stratified sampling technique and simple randomization within the stratum, 265 dentists were asked to participate in the study voluntarily. A self-administered questionnaire consisted of 32 closed questions and 3 sections, section (1) involved the participant’s data, section (2) contained the participant’s knowledge, and section (3) the participant’s practice was distributed. The participant’s knowledge and practice categorized as Good (66.6–100%), Average (33.3–66.6%), and Poor (less than 33.3%). Data was collected and analyzed using (SPSS) .
Results
The response rate was 100%, with nearly equal distribution between males (135, 50.9%) and females (130, 49.1%). The age range is 24–39 years, with a mean of 31.65 ± 7.52 years. The majority of the participants (172, 64.9%) were freshly graduated and young practitioners. The result of the study revealed that 65.7% of the respondents have average knowledge about immediate denture while 8.7% expressed poor knowledge and only 25.7% had excellent knowledge. On the other hand, the majority of the participants (200,75.5%) have never constructed an immediate denture, while only 21.1% have a history of constructing 1–5 immediate dentures, 3% constructed more than 5–10 immediate dentures and only 0.4% constructed more than 10 immediate dentures. The lack of knowledge and experience was the main barrier preventing the use of immediate dentures, and the mainstream of the participants (118, 44.5%), evaluated their knowledge about the immediate denture as poor. a significant correlation was found between the participants’ self-evaluation of their knowledge and their knowledge score with a p-value of 0.000*.
Conclusions
The dental practitioners have average knowledge about the immediate denture, but the practice of the immediate denture is still very limited and requires enhancement.