Abstract

Objective: To assess the educational level and knowledge of the use of laser in Dentistry among the undergraduate and postgraduate students, fresh dental Surgeons and the consultants of different colleges in Karachi.

Methodology: Descriptive, Cross-sectional study was carried out at different dental colleges of Karachi using a self-administered pretested questionnaire from January 2018 to December 2018. The questionnaire consists of 2 parts. First part is about dental laser education and the second one is about the knowledge of dental laser applications. The second part is sub-sectioned to 6 sections. Each section consists of several items related to the uses of laser in 5 different dental specialties in addition to a section in laser protection. The analysis was performed by scoring 2 for a correct response, 0 for don’t know response and -2 for an incorrect response. Students’ knowledge scores will be calculated and transferred to a scale ranged between 2 and -2. Score of > 1 considered as sufficient knowledge, while score of <1 will be considered as insufficient knowledge.

Conclusion: Young dental fraternity is extremely deficient in knowledge related to use and application of Laser in dentistry. It is suggested that curriculum of Pakistan Medical and Dental council for bachelors of dental surgery should need to be revised and more requirement of dental laser usage and its application should be added in order to train our graduates to international standards.

Results: 596 participants, 20.6% were male and 79.4% were female. 32.4% students 59.4 were House Officers. 71.6% never got formal education related to dental laser while 3.7% have more than 3 hours of education. 24.7% cumulatively said they have less than 3 hours of dental laser. 88% participants believe that more education is needed regarding dental laser while 76% participant believe that it should be part of undergraduate teaching program. Enquiring about operative Dentistry mean score regarding noise reduction is 0.526 similarly highest score in operative dentistry were found in composite curing with mean score of 0.856. oral surgery highest correct mean score in frenectomy while least in large vascular lesions i.e. 1.016 and 0.134 respectively. laser protection mean correct score protection of eyes and skins was 1.140 and lowest score in 0.10.

Keywords: Dental; Laser; Education; Dentistry; Karachi; Pakistan

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Citation

Citation: Faisal Hameed., et al. “Educational Needs of Dental Laser as Perceived by Dental Graduates: A Survey of Knowledge and Skill Requirements". Acta Scientific Dental Sciences 4.8 (2020): 43-47.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2020 Faisal Hameed., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.