Knowledge and attitude toward use of internet in smartphones for dental education

Internet has become ubiquitous with the advent of smartphones. The dental fraternity keeps themselves updated and share knowledge through webinars, video conferences, research publications, etc. Hence, the internet serves as an imperative tool for dissemination of information. The usage of internet in dental education can be exploited to the fullest, especially due to the increased ownership rates of smartphones.

A total of 490 students from four dental colleges in Tamil Nadu were asked to fill a close-ended questionnaire to assess the knowledge and attitude of dental students toward internet usage in smartphones. This study was conducted from November 2016 to January 2017.

The response rate was 100%. Almost all the students (98%) had knowledge on browsing. The percentage of internet use in smartphones were the highest (55.2%) followed by computers or laptops at home (26.5%). About 34.6% of students used internet in smartphones daily. More than half of the students (52.2%) used internet in smartphone at least 2-3 h a day. About one quarter (23.4%) of students used internet on a daily basis while 29.59% of students accessed the internet thrice a week for searching content related to dentistry. The preferred source for collecting dental-related information was through the internet (28.9%) and textbooks (28.5%).

Dental students have considerable knowledge in using the internet for dental education and some of them utilize internet more frequently because of the possession of smartphones.