Author(s): Meer Zakirulla*, Aedh Hussain Abdullah Alqahtani, Abdulrahman Saad S Al Hadhir, Abdullah Tariq Mohsena, Khalid Saad M Alqhtani, Abdulrahman Saad F Alasmari, Fares Hassan S Ali, Yaser Ibrahim A Abuhussain, Ali Ayed S Al-khmmash, Amer Mohammed A Alqahtani, Wael Mohammed A Alshehri, Feras Mohammed Almofareh and Ali Abdulrahman Ali Alshehri
Abstract
Aim: The present cross-sectional study was conducted among dental students to assess the awareness and knowledge about Teledentistry in Saudi Arabia.. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out on the sample size of 300 dental professionals (Males 150 & Females 150) in College of Dentistry, King Khalid University, and Abha, Saudi Arabia, to know the awareness of teledentistry among dental students. The questionnaire consists of two main parts: Part 1 includes sociodemographic information of the participants (age and gender), part 2 is related to the dental professionals’ knowledge of telemedicine (ten items). The survey data was collected and organized into Microsoft Excel spreadsheets (Microsoft Inc., USA), and was statistically analyzed utilizing the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 20.0 software (IBM Inc., USA). The statistical test used here was the chi-square test and P values less than 0.05 were considered to be statistically significant (P < 0.05). Results: When dental students were asked about whether they heard about teledentistry, their 33% were said yes and majority said no, a comparative between male and female regarding question were statistically significant. When they asked about the meaning of teledentistry: 29% said through telephone and 71% said through media. 54% of the study participant said they are willing to practice teledentistry in future. 48% of participants agreed that teledentistry can really help in health education of masses; only 29% were not agreed with it. Conclusions: Finding revealed that the majority of dental professional’s knowledge was low, and their attitude toward teledentistry was found to be good. Awareness must be spread among the dental students regarding the proper use of teledentistry in future dentistry.