Knowledge of General Dental Practitioners about Oral Manifestations of Endocrine Disorders in Isfahan

Oral manifestations of endocrine disorders may lead to early diagnosis and proper treatment of these disorders. In addition, many of these patients need special care in dental office; therefore, it is mandatory for dentists to be familiar with oral manifestations of these disorders regarding diagnosis and observing the special care they require. To date no study has been performed on the knowledge of dentists about oral manifestations of endocrine disorders. The aim of this study was to evaluate the knowledge of dentists in Esfahan about oral manifestations of endocrine disorders.
This descriptive‒analytical study was performed on 94 general dental practitioners in Esfahan in 2015‒2016. A 20-score self-made questioner with a Cronbach's alpha value of 2 was used. Data were analyzed with t-test using SPSS (α = 0.05).
The mean knowledge score of the subjects was 11.138 ± 3.23, which was significantly less than the maximum score (p value The knowledge of dentists about the oral manifestations of endocrine disorders was significantly less than what was expected. It seems it is necessary to include oral manifestations of endocrine disorders in the syllabus of dental schools and in continuous dental education programs.