Oral Cancer Knowledge Assessment: Newly Graduated versus Senior Dental Clinicians

Abstract

The present study assessed the level of dentists' knowledge regarding oral cancer in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. A questionnaire was used to compare the level of knowledge among newly graduated and senior clinicians. A total of 20,154 e-mails were correctly delivered to the dentists registered in the database of the Regional Dentistry Council of São Paulo, and 477 (2.36%) responses were received. This sample consisted of 84 newly graduated clinicians and 105 senior clinicians. For the statistical analysis, the chi-square test and the logistic regression analysis were performed with α = 0.05, and the results were described herein. According to their knowledge level, the results were statistically different between the groups, since 19% of the newly graduated clinicians were evaluated with knowledge grade A (excellent) in comparison to 6.7% of the senior clinicians. In spite of the results indicated that newly graduated clinicians' knowledge regarding oral cancer was 2.1 times higher, 34.5% of the professionals in this group had regular or poor knowledge on the subject, and several questions relating to clinical characteristics and risk factors indicated that there still exist some knowledge gaps, demonstrating that there is a need for further studies and information activities addressing oral cancer.

Oral‐cancer knowledge, practice, and attitude assessment of dentists in Upper Egypt: A cross‐sectional study

“…When asking about the OC common stage in Egypt, 76.25% of our participants identified the stage whereas only 24% of respondents awarded the relation between the size of the swelling and OC stage. These results were close to findings of Al‐Maweri et al in Saudi Arabia, but 74.6% of dentists in a Brazilian in the study identified the relation of size and OC stage (Al‐Maweri et al, ; Pavao Spaulonci et al, ). The awareness of our dentist about OC risk factors was high as all of them recorded smoking tobacco and alcohol consumption and over 80% mentioned that family history, HPV, poorly fitted dentures, sun exposure, and consumption of hot beverages and foods are risk factors.…”

“…Years of experience Motallebnejad & Hedayati, 2006). There was not a big difference between positive answers to the common age of OC, the initial aspect of OC, leukoplakia as a common condition associated with OC, and the characteristics of metastasized lymph nodes among our participants, and surveys were done in Italy, Brazil, and Iran (Colella et al, 2008;Pavao Spaulonci et al, 2018;Razavi et al, 2013). There was a wide variation among studies regarding the common site of the OC.…”

“…Moreover, a personal interview may explain the high response rate of the current study, which was too close to studies performed in Iran and showed about 92% response rate (Mehdizadeh, Seyed Majidi, Sadeghi, & Hamzeh, ; Razavi et al, ). In contrast, several previously published articles in Brazil, Japan, Australia, and Spain showed a much lower response rate of less than 10% due to the dependence on sent electronic mails (Haresaku, Makino, Sugiyama, Naito, & Marino, ; Lopez‐Jornet et al, ; Pavao Spaulonci, Salgado de Souza, Gallego Arias Pecorari, & Lauria Dib, ). It was found that 82.25% of the dentists identified OSCC as the most common cancer of the oral cavity.…”

“…In contrast, Pavao‐Spaulonci et al reported that only 13% of dentists never attended any OC events before. This alarmists that the conferences for graduate dentists are not enough as well as university courses have a shortage regarding OC training (Pavao Spaulonci et al, ). In the current study, there was a statistically significant difference of knowledge level among dentists in relation to their age, years of experience, last scientific degree, and hours of work.…”

“…The awareness of our dentist about OC risk factors was high as all of them recorded smoking tobacco and alcohol consumption and over 80% mentioned that family history, HPV, poorly fitted dentures, sun exposure, and consumption of hot beverages and foods are risk factors. These findings come inconsistency with a verity of surveys established in Spain, Italy, Brazil, Yemen, the United Kingdom, and the United States(Alaizari & Al-Maweri, 2014;Boroumand, Garcia, Selwitz, & Goodman, 2008;Carter & Ogden, 2007;Colella et al, 2008;Horowitz, Drury, Goodman, & Yellowitz, 2000;Lopez- Jornet et al, 2010;Patton et al, 2005;Pavao Spaulonci et al, 2018).Less than 40% of dentists considered lower consumption of fruits and vegetables, and only 23.8% had a positive response towards oral sex related to HPV transmission as OC risk factors. This spots the light on some OC risk factors that may be neglected during educational courses.…”