Knowledge, Awareness and Practice of Dental Notation systems among Dental Practitioners- A cross-sectional survey

Abstract

Background: Tooth Numbering System (TNS) uniquely identifies each tooth by number for charting and communication purposes. Historically, different methods of designating and encoding teeth have been used.

Aim: To assess the knowledge,  awareness and practice of dental notation systems by the dental professionals.

Materials and Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional survey was conducted among 100 study participants. Data collection was done by means of online google survey form. Data  was entered in Microsoft excel sheet after collection and was analysed using SPSS software. Descriptive statistics were expressed by means of number, frequency, and percentage. Chi- Square test was used to find the association between variables. The level of statistical significance is at p<0.05. Statistical software used was SPSS version 23.

Result: The most easiest tooth numbering system chosen by participants was FDI by 78.79%, followed by Universal (14.14%) and least was palmer that is only 7.07%.The tooth numbering system used for primary dentition chosen by majority of the participants were FDI (85.86%) followed by Universal (11.11%) and least was Palmer that was chosen by only 3.03% of the participants. 84.85% of practitioners felt the FDI system was most used in supernumerary teeth. 49% of the 15-25 yrs age group,  21% of 26-35 yrs and 9% of the 35-45 yrs age group had chosen the FDI system as the easy to comprehend tooth notation system (p-value=6.219).56% of dental assistants, 11% of practicing dentist/dental student and 2% of dental technician felt the wrong tooth extraction was the most important problem due to wrong notations of the teeth(p-value=17.183).

Conclusion: Based on the result of the study we can conclude that the majority of the Dental practitioners are aware of the different types of Dental Notation. The FDI system was the most preferred, practised and easily understood method of dental notation by various dental professionals.