Frequency Distribution of Medical Consultations Performed for Patients Referred to Yazd Dental School in the Years 2019 to 2021

Medical consultation plays an important role in the diagnosis and planning of dental treatment ‎and is recommended for the patients with unclear medical histories and underlying diseases.

In this descriptive-cross-sectional study, 146 consultation letters of patients referred to Shahid Sadoughi Faculty of Dentistry, Yazd, Iran who were selected by easy sampling method, were investigated. In this study, SPSS version 16 statistical software was used to check the obtained data. Percentage, frequency, mean, variance and frequency distribution were used to describe the data, and X^2 (chi-square) and ANOVA tests were used for analysis.

The mean age of the participants in the study was 44.71 ‎‎± 15.70 with a range of age changes from 13 to 80 year. Fifty-six patients aged 20-40 years (38.4%) and 58 patient aged 60-40 years (39.7%) had the largest number. Out of 146 patients who received medical consultation, 54 were men (37%) and 92 (63%) were women. The main reasons for consulting were to evaluate the cardiovascular condition of patients (26%), neurological diseases (19.2%) and hypertension (17.1%). Moreover, the main consideration of the responding doctors was to continue the treatment process with the usual protocol (71.2%). Considering the considerable percentage of recommendations to change the usual dental protocol in patients, medical consultation seems necessary.

Considering the considerable percentage of recommendations to change the usual dental protocol in the patients, it seems that it is necessary to carry out medical consultation. As a result, the role of oral and maxillofacial disease specialist in controlling the patients with systemic problems becomes important and it is necessary to establish effective communication between doctors and dentists for better patient care.