ABSTRACT.
Objectives:
To assess knowledge, attitudes and behavior of pediatricians in Tanta city Egypt regarding children oral health, and to determine their will to integrate preventive dental education and procedures in their daily clinical practice.
Background:
Increasing pediatrician's involvement in oral health promotion during child check up visits will improve children oral health especially those difficulty getting professional dental care. However, pediatricians' knowledge about preventive oral health, their readiness to participate in prevention and pediatricians' perceived barriers in professional dental referral are not clear.
Study design:
An observational cross-sectional study was carried on 63 pediatricians working in the clinics of 14 primary health care centers in Tanta city, Gharbiya Governorate, Egypt.
Results: response rate of pediatricians was 82.54%. Mean of 23.07% of respondents were willing to apply fluoride varnish, 11.53 % consider white spots as a marker of early dental decay. All participants (100%) stated they had not been instructed in oral health neither in medical school, during residency nor through CME courses. Fifty percent of respondents reported having seen caries in school-aged children at least once per month. Percentage of pediatricians found difficulty to refer patients who are tow years old or less was 67.30%, followed by difficulty in referring patients who had developmental delay (61.53%).
Conclusion
Based on the result of the current study, it becomes clear that pediatricians suffer from lack of knowledge and time to take greater role in the oral health promotion of children furthermore they face many barriers for professional dental refer.