Dental Advertising - A Necessary Evil

Objectives: To assess the level of awareness among dentists regarding ethical practices for advertising in Pakistan.
Methods: It is a cross sectional study using purposive sampling technique. 600 dentists in four major cities in Pakistan were given a pre tested questionnaire comprising 10 questions. 538 responded back with filled questionnaires. Undergraduate students and house officers were not included in the study. The data was entered and analyzed on SPSS version 11.0
Results: 365 (68%) of respondents were in favor of dentists advertising their services. A vast majority of respondents who were in favor was the younger group 414 (77%) compared to the senior consultants 177 (33%). Furthermore females were more in favor of advertising than males.
Conclusions: Although PMDC is not in favor of advertisements by health professionals, but our multi-center survey show that a majority of younger dentists are in favor of dental advertizing with the ethical codes kept intact. Ethical advertising is easily achieved by promoting patient education while not placing the dentist's self-interests ahead of the patient's. With this approach, dentistry may continue to be one of the most trusted professions.