Saudi Arabian Physicians’ Knowledge about Diet in Relationship to Dental Caries and Their Behavior Toward Oral Health
Abstract
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Saudi Arabian Physicians’ Knowledge about Diet in Relationship to Dental Caries and Their Behavior Toward Oral Health
- Creators
- Amal Aljeshi
- Contributors
- Justine Kolker (Advisor)Michelle McQuistan (Committee Member)Teresa Marshall (Committee Member)Sandra Guzman-Armstrong (Committee Member)Erliang Zeng (Committee Member)
- Resource Type
- Thesis
- Degree Awarded
- Master of Science (MS), University of Iowa
- Degree in
- Operative Dentistry
- Date degree season
- Spring 2020
- DOI
- 10.17077/etd.005447
- Publisher
- University of Iowa
- Number of pages
- xv, 119 pages
- Copyright
- Copyright 2020 Amal Aljeshi
- Language
- English
- Description bibliographic
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 87-104).
- Public Abstract (ETD)
Dental caries (cavities) is the most common untreated disease in the world. In Saudi Arabia, studies showed that dental caries is present among a large percentage of children. Controlling dietary behaviors are necessary to prevent dental caries disease, as diet is an essential component in the formation of dental caries. Children visit physicians at an earlier age than they visit dentists. Thus, physicians can play an important role in dental caries disease prevention, by identifying dental caries, referring children to a dentist and counseling about dental health related issues such as the relationship between diet and dental caries. For all of these reasons, this study aimed to evaluate physician’s knowledge about the relationship between diet and dental caries. This study also aimed to evaluate physicians’ practices towards dental health such as evaluating children’s teeth, referring children to a dentist and counseling parents about dental health. To conduct this study, a questionnaire was sent through WhatsApp application.
This study revealed that physicians had good overall knowledge about the relationship between diet and dental caries. However, the physicians had less knowledge about the effect of breastfeeding throughout the night and xylitol on dental caries. General practitioners had more knowledge than pediatricians and family medicine physicians. Physicians do not often counsel about dental related subjects, refer children to a dentist or evaluate children’s teeth. However, general practitioners counsel about whether a child takes a bottle to bed and evaluate children’s teeth more than pediatricians and family medicine physicians. Physicians who had more years of practice counsel about whether a child takes a bottle to bed more than physicians with less years of experience.
- Academic Unit
- Operative Dentistry
- Record Identifier
- 9983956192602771