Knowledge, attitude, practice, and self-reported competency of Iranian senior dental students towards preventive dentistry

Regarding to importance of prevention in current dentistry and considerable role of dentists’ attitude and practice in this area, the aim of the present study was investigation of knowledge, attitude, practice, and self-reported competency of Iranian dental students towards preventive dentistry in 2015.
Of all Iranian state dental schools, six were selected by stratified random sampling. All the dental students (n = 252) were asked to voluntarily complete a standard anonymous question naire containing background information, oral self-care, knowledge, attitude, practice, and self-reported competency towards preventive dentistry.
A total of207 participants (response rate of 82.1%) completed the questionnaire of whom 118 respondents (57%) were women. Women reported significantly higher frequencies of flossing (p = 0.02) and lower frequencies of eating sugary snacks (p=0.03) compared with men. Students who their mothers had an academic education reported higher frequencies of flossing (p=0.03), tooth brushing (p=0.03), respecting EBOSC (p=0.03) and had the highest practices cores towards preventive dentistry (p=0.009). A higher score on preventive practice among the students was associated with their positive attitudes (p=0.005) and self-perceived competency (p=0.05) towards prevention.
Despite some favorable changes in dental education, preventive dentistry has not found its real position among dental students yet. Appropriate programming is necessary to promote present situation among dental students.