Ankara İl Merkezinde Serbest Çalışan Diş Hekimlerinin Profili

Abstract

Oral health services and dentists have a great role in general health systems. The methods used, conducted preventive practices, and patient's routine records have a particular importance while planning oral and dental health services organization, implementation and reorganization stages in an appropriate manner. The statistical information will help to enlightenment of the relevant government agencies about the dentists' current status furthermore it will help to see dentists' own location on current methods and progress. Therefore, the questionnaire was conducted to reveal the profile of the private practicing dentists in Ankara province. Questionnaire was grouped under three main headings; demographic information, approaches to current diagnosis and treatment, and dental procedures. After questionnaires were delivered to dentists, retrieved in 1-3 visits. Data was analyzed using frequency analysis and Chi-square test. Questionnaire was completed by 328 dentists composed of 160 women, 168 men. Individuals participated in this study were between 25-69 years. Sex, active working time, being a specialist in restorative dentistry and being a specialist in other areas were taken into consideration. 28.4% of respondents were specialized dentists. Participants reported their economic status as moderate but men status' were better than women (p=0,026). Dentists usually were working in their own practice and not very busy. It appeared that most of the dentists prefer to treat young adult and adult patients but not child and old patients. They mostly referred the patients to the specialist colleagues for orthodontic treatments, surgical tooth extraction and periodontal surgery. Air drying and traditional explorer were mostly preferred methods for caries diagnosis. Participants usually had dental radiography device and this device was mostly used by the dentists (work actively with the shortest time) for occlusal caries diagnosis (p=0,003). Most prevalent preventive application was oral hygiene education with no sex differences (p=0,262). Tooth's situation and patients' esthetical requirements were taken into consideration while choosing restorative materials and composite resins were mostly used for this purpose. Implants were mostly proposed treatment options if there were missing teeth. Usuallly, patients did not have a private dental insurance and they had to pay themselves. Dentists should be supported to follow current diagnosis and treatment methods and to reach fundemental equipments in the light of modern dentistry.