Isfahan general dentist's awareness, attitude, and performance regarding prescription of new caries prevention materials containing calcium and fluoride components

Firouzeh Nilchian; Zahra Ataie; Sakineh Azadi

doi:10.4103/jehp.jehp_212_20

Isfahan general dentist's awareness, attitude, and performance regarding prescription of new caries prevention materials containing calcium and fluoride components

J Educ Health Promot. 2023 Feb 28:12:74. doi: 10.4103/jehp.jehp_212_20. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Firouzeh Nilchian¹, Zahra Ataie², Sakineh Azadi²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Public Oral Health, Dental Material Research Center, Dental Research Institute, School of Dentistry, Isfahan, University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
² Dental Student, Dental Research Institute, School of Dentistry, Isfahan, University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.

Abstract

Background: Fluoride Ion can cause remineralization of primary caries lesions in the presence of calcium and phosphate. New compounds of calcium-containing casein phosphopeptides-amorphous calcium phosphate (CPP-ACP), make the remineralization more effective. This research has been done to evaluate the awareness, attitude, and performance of Isfahan general dentists regarding the prescription of new caries prevention materials containing calcium and fluoride components.

Materials and methods: This cross-sectional-descriptive-analytic study has been conducted on 152 general dentists in Isfahan ensuring confidentiality of information and obtaining informed consent. Isfahan general dental offices and clinics were selected using a simple random method. Data of this research were collected using a questionnaire from previous studies. The questions were divided into four sections, including demographic information, awareness, attitude, and performance towards products containing calcium and fluoride prescription. The significance level of P was considered 0.05. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 22, T statistical test, Pearson correlation coefficient, and one-way analysis of variance.

Results: The mean score for dentists awareness was 46.3 (standard deviation [SD] = 15.4), the mean score of attitude was 91.4 (SD = 26.1) and the Mean Score of performance was 54.3 (SD = 27.3) (the scores range from 0 to 100). According to the Pearson correlation coefficient, there was no significant relationship between dentists' awareness, attitude besides performance, and their ages together with dentistry work experiences (P > 0.05).

Conclusion: According to the study results, dentists' awareness of compounds containing CPP-ACP is overall average. However, attending to their positive attitudes toward this context, providing appropriate training programs seem to stimulate them for optimum cooperation as well as using these products for patients.

Keywords: Awareness; calcium compounds; caries prevention; general dentist; performance.