Evaluation of Dentists' and Gynecologists' Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice Regarding Oral and Dental Care during Pregnancy in Qom, Iran, in 2017

Background & Aims of the Study: Dentists and gynecologists seem not to have sufficient information regarding oral and dental care to provide pregnant women. Moreover, their lack of preparation and undesirable attitude prevent them from transmitting any information. This study aimed to evaluate dentistschr('39') and gynecologistschr('39') knowledge, attitude, and practice regarding oral and dental care during pregnancy in Qom, Iran in 2017. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted on 130 participants who were selected using the convenience sampling method. Subsequently, they were assigned into dentist (n=65) and gynecologist (n=65) groups. The data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire. Moreover, the data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, and t-test. A P-value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: According to the results, there was a significant difference between dentistschr('39') and gynecologistschr('39') levels of knowledge (P=0.000), attitude (P=0.000), and practice (P=0.000) (i.e., 80.85, 81.93, and 86.53 in the dentist group, respectively) and (i.e., 58.46, 72.65, and 70.76, in the gynecologist group, respectively). Furthermore, the gynecologistschr('39') age correlated significantly with the level of knowledge (P=0.04) and attitude (P=0.04). However, gynecologistschr('39') age was not correlated with the level of practice. Moreover, there was a significant difference between gynecologistschr('39') work experience and level of knowledge (P=0.016). Nonetheless, work experience had no correlation with gynecologistschr('39') levels of attitude and practice. Conclusion: Based on the results, dentists and gynecologists obtained favorable mean values of knowledge, attitude, and practice in this study. However, dentists had higher scores in this regard. Therefore, greater interactions should be encouraged between oral health practitioners and those working in the health care system to improve their performance. Additionally, there is a need to update the information levels of these health care professionals in order to establish guidelines for prenatal dental care.

کلیدواژه ها:

Attitude ، Dentists ، Gynecologists ، Knowledge ، Practice ، Pregnancy