Awareness of General Dentists of Ardabil City (Iran) about Prescribed Drugs in Dental Root Procedures

A dentist must be aware about the medications that he/she prescribes, particularly those taken by patients with systemic disorders. The present study focused on the level of knowledge of general dentists in Ardabil concerning the medications prescribed during root canal treatment. The present cross sectional–descriptive study focused on the knowledge possessed by Ardabil general dentists concerning the medications prescribed during root canal treatment in 2016‒2017. To this end, we developed a questionnaire which was completed by as many as 80 general dentists. The questionnaire consisted of questions on demographic data and level of awareness of the dentists. Data were analyzed with SPSS 23, using descriptive statistics and one-way ANOVA (α = 0.05). The results suggested that the level of knowledge on the drugs prescribed during root canal treatment was moderate (14.56 ± 6.91). Furthermore, the results showed that the mean knowledge levels of the dentists concerning the medications prescribed during root canal treatment were significantly different in terms of age, experience and university of origin (p value < 0.05). In contrast, there was no significant difference in terms of gender and source of knowledge acquisition (p value > 0.05). The level of knowledge of the general dentists in Ardabil concerning medications prescribed during root canal treatment was moderate. The inverse relation between the experience and level of knowledge indicates that knowledge of the dentists is not updated relative their increasing experience and no serious measures have been taken to update their knowledge. This reveals the need for consideration of retraining courses for the dentists concerning the medications prescribed during root canal treatment.