PAKISTANI DENTISTS ATTITUDE TOWARDS CHAIRSIDESCREENING OF MEDICAL CONDITIONS

Abstract

Due to the increased burden of non-communicable diseases in Pakistan, shortage of primary physi-cians and the need for greater collaboration among health professionals, dentists need to be involved in the overall health of their patients. There is a strong body of evidence demonstrating the efficacy of chairside screening of medical conditions by dentists to identify and refer patients at risk of life threatening events.The objective of this study was to determine dentists’ attitudes and practices related to chairside screening of systemic diseases with emphasis on Diabetes Mellitus(DM).Cross-sectional multicenter study was conducted utilizing validated questionnaire that was dis-tributed to 214 dental professionals based on convenience sampling from six different dental colleges from Karachi, Pakistan.Results showed that more than 89% of dentists expressed their willingness to screen for systemic non-communicable diseases. Furthermore 77% of dentists surveyed expressed their readiness to collect samples through different tools. 94.8% dentists were willing to screen for Diabetes and hypertension was rated second highest 93.9% among the dental professionals. Topmost barriers that hindered in screening procedures were patient’s resistance and lack of referral knowledge according to this mul-ticenter study. After screening, 80% of dentists were equipped for regular monitoring, counseling and advised use of glucometer to known cases of DM. In this study dentists were found to be in general agreement to chairside medical screening & monitoring of diabetes. Screening only detects the absence or presence of disease; proper diagnosis should be done and for that proper referral should be given by dentists. Medical screening should be done by dental professionals to promote an integrated approach to health promotion and disease prevention. Majority of dentists surveyed in this study considered medical screening to be important and were willing to incorporate in their dental practices. Practical implementation strategies and continuing education are deemed mandatory to address perceived barriers