Attitudes and perception of Nigerian dentists about shortened dental arch therapy (SDAT)

The shortened dental arch therapy (SDAT) is a strategy to reduce complex restorative treatment in the molar area. By offering the partially dentate patients, a treatment option that ensures oral functionality, improved oral hygiene, comfort and possibly reduced costs, the SDA treatment approach appears to provide an advantage without compromising patient care. Despite these encouraging reports, it has been stated that there are few papers in the literature addressing clinical attitudes to SDAT. The current study is, therefore, designed to determine the attitude and perception of dentist in Nigeria about the concept.

A cross-sectional study was conducted using a self-administered structured questionnaire. The questionnaire employed by Sarita et al. was modified and employed as the instrument for data collection. The respondents were requested to provide information about their socio-demographic variables and their attitudes and perception of SDAT. The questionnaires were randomly distributed among general dental practitioners and residents (postgraduate doctors) in dental training institutions in Nigeria.

The clinical experience of most of the respondents was < or = 10 years. Most of the respondents were working in government institutions. Few of the respondents (36.1%) indicated that the concept was good for developing country like Nigeria and only few of the respondents (38.0%) agreed with the problem-oriented approach. Most respondents indicated that patients with shortened dental arches are not nutritionally less healthy and that, the oral functions and TMJ health of these patients is acceptable.

It appears the attitude and perception of dentists in Nigeria as it relates to shortened dental arch concept is not impressive at the moment.