Professional legislation knowledge of dentists and psychological effects of negligence

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the extent to which a group of general dentists and specialists had knowledge of the professional laws and psychological effects of negligence on them.

The sample in this cross-sectional study consisted of 400 dentists (General dentists and specialists) in Isfahan city, Iran. Having designed the questionnaire and confirmed its validity and reliability, we published online to be completed by the dentists. The obtained data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test, and ANOVA test. Optimal knowledge was determined to be 75%, and P-value<0.05 was considered to be statistically significant.

The majority of the dentists (75%) had poor and very poor knowledge. The mean score of knowledge (range: 0-21, maximum obtainable: 24) was 9.58 ± 4.5. Sixty dentists (15%) reported they had experienced negligence. Further, 278 (69.5%) reported they had somehow experienced the occurrence of malpractice during their practical experience. Legal negligence was more prevalent among the general dentists than specialists (17.8 VS 8%, p < 0.001). Regarding the legal complaint history, a significant difference was observed between the males and females (P = 0.015) and among different categories of work experience years (P = 0.000). Moreover, among those who had a history of a legal complaint, 96.7% showed psychological symptoms, 70% had physical symptoms, and 80% displayed social symptoms related to the stress following legal complaints.

Findings of this study indicated that refining the knowledge of the rules and regulations of the dental profession should be enhanced by considering appropriate training courses in the curricula and continuous education programs. More than half of the participants considered themselves guilty of negligence in this regard.