Evaluation of attitudes and applications of dentists on oral hygiene instructions and patient motivation

Dental plaque biofilm (DPB) plays a major role in the etiology of periodontal diseases, dental caries, pulpal diseases, apical periodontitis and peri-implant diseases. These diseases can be prevented by removing plaque mechanically by the patient himself. Oral hygiene habits are essential for the prevention of these diseases and are important to provide optimum dental health. Therefore oral hygiene instructions (OHI) should be given to the patients and patient motivation (PM) should be improved through motivational interviews with them, so that the patients can apply these proceduredes constantly. Due to the health system in our country, giving OHI and improving PM are realized by dentists primarily. In this case, the factors such as the ability of the clinician to communicate with the patient and the time to be needed for the procedure are getting important. The purpose of our research is to evaluate the attitudes and applications of dentists in Turkey on OHI and PM. The questionnaire, which was prepared as "online and mobile survey" for the study, included a total of 32 questions, 9 of which were demographic features, 16 of them were about OHI and 7 of them were about PM. The results of the study were evaluated by comparing the answers of 651 dentists to the questions according to their socio-demographic characteristics and fields of specialization. The question of "Do you give oral hygiene instructions to your patients?" answered as "Yes" by the percentage of participants working in private practice is significantly higher than participants working in universities or governmental institutions (p<0.05). The question of "How do you usually give oral hygiene instructions (like brushing or interdental cleaning)?" answered as "On a cast model" by the percentage of specialization students is significantly higher than the percentage of the general dental practicioners (p<0.05); "Applied in mouth" or "Via video" by the percentage of the specialists is significantly higher than the percentage of the specialization students or general dental practicioners (p<0.05). The questions of "When do you give instructions for the interdental cleaning to the patients?" answered as "To every patient" or "When I assume the patient will comply" by the percentage of specialists or specialization students is significantly higher than the percentage of general dental practicioners (p<0.05). The question of "Who do you think would be most appropriate to give oral hygiene instructions?" answered as "Dental assistant" or "Who has an undergraduate degree on Oral and Dental Health" by the percentage of paticipants with >10 years of experience is significantly higher than the percentage of participants with <5 years of experience (p<0.05). The question of "What do you primarily pay attention to when recommending a toothbrush or cleaning aids to your patients?" answered as "Features of it" by the percentage of female participants is significantly higher than the percentage of male participants (p<0.05). The question of "Do you advise the use of an oral irrigator to your patients?" answered as "Yes" by the percentage of participants in oral and maxillofacial surgery or prosthodontics is significantly higher than the percentage of participants in the other areas except orthodontics and the percentage of the general dental practicioners (p<0.05). The question of "When do you give patients information about their periodontal condition?" answered as "At each visit" by the percentage of specialists or specialization students is significantly higher than the percentage of general dental practicioners(p<0.05); the percentage of participants working in universities or private practice is significantly higher than the percentage of participants working in governmental institutions (p<0.05). The question of "What if patients do not comply to your instructions?" answered as "I don't adress the issue" by the percentage of participants working in private practice is significantly higher than the percentage of participants working in universities or governmental institutions (p<0.05), the percentage of participants working in governmental institutions is significantly higher than the percentage of participants working in universities(p<0.05); "I end the treatment" by the percentage of paticipants working in governmental institutions is significantly higher than the percentage of the participants working in universities or private practice (p<0.05). The question of "How compatible do you think about your efforts to motivate patients with the booked results?" answered as "Incompatible" by the the percentage of participants working in governmental institutions is significantly higher than the percentage of participants working in the universities or private practice (p<0.05); "Highly compatible" by the percentage of participants with >10 years of experience is significantly higher than the percentage of participants with <5 years of experience (p<0.05). The question of "Factor contributing most to the oral hygiene level of the patient?" answered as "Dentists" by the percentage of participants with >10 years of experience is significantly higher than the percentage of participants with <5 years of experience (p<0.05). According to our study, OHI and PM is important for the clinicians working in Turkey, but it appears not to be applied effectively enough. Dentists should be encouraged to give in-mouth instructions, use disclosing agents, and increase motivational interviews. Dentists' attitudes and applications on OHI and PM are not only based on their knowledge and perspective; it may differs depending on the working conditions, the service system in the institution worked in, specialization in a field, different age groups treated and the contents of the treatments in different fields.