KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICE OF DENTAL PRACTITIONERS REGARDING ORAL CANCER

Objectives: The aim of this study is to assess the knowledge, attitude and practices of dentists practicing in Karachi, Pakistan regarding oral cancer.
Methods: The study was conducted in 2013 in Karachi Pakistan. A cross sectional study design was used to conduct this research, a self administered 25-item questionnaire containing simple YES OR NO questions was utilized in present study. The survey questions encompassed the following: clinician’s demographic. clinician’s knowledge about site, signs, symptoms & risk factors clinician’s practices with regard to performing oral cancer screening and examinations on patients and clinician’s attitude and believes regarding their ability and importance to detect oral cancer.
Results: 70% of the dentists had knowledge about common risk factors but when low consumption of fruits and vegetable were asked as a risk factor only 58% knew, only 64.3 % dentist agreed that squamous cells are most common cancer causing cell, when question regarding early sign and symptoms were asked only 68.3% agreed that Erythroplakia among most common early sign and symptom when questions regarding attitude were asked 77% dentists agreed that oral screening can lead to early diagnosis while 75.4% dentists believe that they are trained to perform oral examination to detect oral cancer, when dentists were asked if they update their knowledge from scientific researches only 69% dentists said yes .regarding practice 84.9% dentists said they perform screening on every patient, majority of dentists that were surveyed refer to a specialist when detect any non-healing ulcers rather performing biopsies themselves .
Conclusions: Hence findings from this study is the call for interventions to increase knowledge awareness and systematical educational program for dentists to update their knowledge, attitude and practices regarding oral cancer and need for standardized oral screening procedure which leads to early detection of oral cancer Which is essential to reduce mortality rates worldwide due to cancer. This subject is really important but often neglected.