Method: A random selection was made of 136 PD and 225 GD in Illinois. A questionnaire was mailed in September 2012 with a second mailing in November 2012. The questionnaire contained 30 items with several having multiple sub-questions based on the AAPD guidelines for adolescent oral health issues and included questions on dentists’ demographics, practices, and training as well as estimated frequency, comfort levels and attitudes towards adolescents’ oral health care. “Less” sensitive topics included oral hygiene, caries, nutritional habits, sealant, mouth guards, orthodontic treatment, and teeth whitening/bleaching. “More” sense topics included tobacco use, pregnancy, oral cancer, sexually transmitted diseases, alcohol and drug abuse, and eating disorders. Dentists who did not treat adolescents and were not practicing in Illinois or identified as not being a PD or GD were eliminated. Final sample sizes were 60 PD and 50 GD (47% and 26% response rates respectively).
Result: PD and GD differed on gender (PD 44% male, GD 78% male, p<0.001), primary practice type (PD 38% solo private practice, GD 60% solo private practice, p=0.04), and practice location (PD 86% city, GD 63% city, p=0.005). Overall, PD have a higher screening level on more adolescent oral health topics than GD do (p=0.001). When separated into score sums for “More” and “Less” sensitive topics, PD screen significantly more for “Less” sensitive topics than GD do (p<0.001) but the two groups screen similarly on “More” sensitive topics (p=0.09).
Conclusion: Pediatric Dentists report addressing more issues of adolescent oral health than General Dentists do. However, for both groups of dentists, the report of addressing the “More” sensitive topics was less frequent than the report of addressing “Less” sensitive topics.