[Knowledge of physicians and dentists about biomathematical-epidemiologic methods]

A multiple-choice test questionnaire on statistical terms and methods was sent to 600 randomly selected physicians and dental surgeons and was returned by 264 (27%) of them: 183 physicians and 81 dental surgeons. The median number of correct answers for physicians was 10.1, markedly higher than the 6.2 scored by dental surgeons. At least half of the questions were correctly answered by 60% of the physicians and nearly 14% of the dental surgeons. Whereas some 14% of physicians had a good knowledge of statistical methods (with more than 2/3 of questions answered correctly), this was true of only 2.5% of the questioned dental surgeons. The results suggest that the majority of physicians and dental surgeons, especially the latter, are not capable of profiting from statistically orientated scientific articles. Moreover, the low percentage of questionnaires returned by dental surgeons may well indicate that, as a group, their statistical skills are far lower than even the results of this questionnaire would indicate. A need is seen for the education of dental surgeons to be bound more closely to that for human medicine.