Attitude of Clinical Dental Students to Bleaching of Vital and Non-Vital Teeth: A Cross-Sectional Study
Mohammed Abuhassna, Oubada Sulaiman, Nawaf Alotaibi, Khalid Alanazi, Faten Alshahrani, Rawan Alolayan, Sara Almutawa, Sulaiman Alhowimel,
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ABSTRACT
Aim: To assess the attitudes of clinical dental
students towards the various aspects of tooth bleaching in Saudi Arabia
Methods: This is an observational cross-sectional
study that was carried out across different universities in Saudi Arabia. The
study’s questionnaire consisted of questions regarding the demographics and
knowledge of dental bleaching procedures, techniques, and materials. Descriptive
statistics of frequency distribution and percentages were calculated for
categorical variables and the Chi-squared test was applied to assess the
relationship between categorical variables.
Results: A total of 674 dental students and interns
from 14 different governmental and private dental colleges in Saudi Arabia
completed the survey. The majority of participants were females, 461 (68.4%),
attended governmental universities, 396 (58.8%), and did not use any bleaching
techniques (62.8%). Dental interns had a higher level of knowledge (42%)
followed by 5th-year students (33.7%), and 6th-year students (22.9%).
Furthermore, participants who practiced tooth bleaching during clinical training
and private universities’ students showed a significantly better bleaching
knowledge
Conclusion: Overall, dental schools should be encouraging
their students to be involved in bleaching application. Additionally, there is
a pressing need to focus more on dental bleaching material and procedures in
dental school.
Keywords: Tooth bleaching, bleaching,
techniques, dental students, attitude