Objectives: Teledentistry is a relatively novel aspect, wherein digital telecommunication modalities are effectively employed for transferring data such as images and videos between dental professionals and patients that are physically separated across a distance. The concept could be essentially beneficial in improving the provision of oral health care to patients in rural areas and remote locations, especially in situations such as the present COVID-19 pandemic. Materials and Methods: Dental professionals having at least a graduation degree (BDS) were considered eligible for the study. A self-constructed e-questionnaire comprising 15 questions was validated and then circulated online with the aid of messenger applications and emails to the eligible participants. The data were analyzed based on age, gender, qualification, and years of experience for the dentist-based survey using the Chi-square test. Results: Our results indicate that only 55.6% of respondents had come across this relatively novel concept of digitalized health care provision with only 43% being aware of the modalities that can be utilized for the same. A significant portion (70–80%) of the respondents supported the utility of teledentistry in various specialization branches of dental practice. Conclusion: Despite multiple benefits of teledentistry in various aspects of the field of dental practice and education, its use is still limited due to relative unawareness. With the present technology available across dental clinics even in rural areas, it is now more feasible and simpler to incorporate teledentistry into one’s dental practice subsequently improving the quality of the oral health care system.
Objectives: QR codes form an integral part of modern-day digitalized information storage technology in almost all the fields. Their utility in oral health-care field also has a huge potential, most of which can be uncovered once the oral health-care professionals are aware about their uses and technique of generation. Materials and Methods: A self-constructed e-questionnaire was validated and circulated through online media to oral health-care professionals in India. Data were subjected to statistical analysis and descriptive statistics were obtained. Comparison of frequencies of categories of variables with groups was done using Chi-square test. Results: The study sample of n = 334 respondents comprised 222 females and 112 males. The age of respondents ranged from 22 to 65 years with a mean age of 28.96 years (S.D = ± 6.877). Majority of respondents were aware about the utility of QR codes in day-to-day aspects as well as dental clinical practice and academics. Although two-thirds of respondents perceived online data management as an easy task, generation of QR codes was considered as relatively more difficult requiring higher technical skills. Conclusion: QR codes can have a wide variety of applications in the field of dentistry such as in prosthodontics, orthodontics, oral pathology, radiology, and forensic odontology. Our findings suggest that most of the dental professionals have convenient access to the technology essential to generate QR code, and yet, about 70% of oral health-care professionals are unaware about their generation technique.
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