Syrian Dentists Knowledge and Attitudes Towards People with Disability

Purpose: It is to investigate the knowledge, attitudes and clinical behavior of Syrian dentists towards people with disability, following up the factor influencing this knowledge and attitudes. No such data were available from Syria. Materials and methods: 120 Syrian dentists in practice working in Damascus completed the survey administered by this study. The dentists demographic and educational data were collected, along with information about their knowledge, attitudes and clinical behavior toward the disabled. Results: The knowledge was limited. The dentists revealed the reasons of disability were 22.6% of mental disease, 19.4% of genetic disease, 17.7% of birth disorders, 9.7% of tumors, 1.6% of accidents, and 29% all of that. Sources of knowledge were 41.1% from under graduated study, and 8.1% from post graduated study. The attitude was negative: 75.8% of the dentists are not willing to treat the disabled. 29.9% believed that having that disabled treated in the same office might make other patients reluctant to continue their dental care there. 27.5% indicated that the office policy did not allow them to treat the disabled. Pediatric dentists appeared to be the prominent ones to treat the disabled among other specializations (p= 0.048 0.05). Female dentists had significantly more favorable attitudes to the disabled compared with male dentists (p= 0.03 0.05). Conclusion: This study was the first to investigate the knowledge and attitudes of Syrian dentists towards people with disability. The author suggested increasing the:1-undergraduate and postgraduate training to improve the quantity and quality of the disabled care, and 2-future research about purposeful clinical experience for the disabled.