Abstract

Awareness of Antibiotic Prescription among Dental Professionals in Davangere City: A Cross-Sectional Surve

Background: Prescribing antibiotics has become an important trait of day-to-day practice for dental practitioners in managing dental infections. Clinical and bacteriological epidemiological factors can determine the indications of antibiotics in dentistry. Over the years, the overuse of antibiotics has been noticed, where bacterial species have developed resistance to the full range of antibiotics presently available, and hence antibiotic resistance is an important issue for public health. Objectives: To assess the knowledge of rational use of drugs and the pattern of prescribing of antibiotics among dental health care professionals in Davangere city. Materials and method: A closed-ended structured, pretested questionnaire was distributed to all the registered dentists of Davangere city with demographic details and questions regarding the antibiotics prescription. A total of 173 dental professionals participated in the survey. Descriptive statistics and Logistic regression analysis were performed. Chi-square test was applied to test any significant differences between respondents based on qualitative variables and p<0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: Out of 173 respondents, 34.1% (n=59) were BDS and 65.8% (n=114) were MDS. Around 23.7% (n=41) of the dentists prescribed antibiotics based on the patient’s history and there was a statistically significant difference in the age group of respondents regarding the reason for antibiotic prescriptions (p=0.01). 74% (n=128) of the respondents agreed that antibiotic resistance is a problem. And there was a highly statistically significant difference in the years of experience of the dentists (p=0.001). Conclusion: The biggest dynamism for change will be if all the dentists would be more rational in their pattern of prescribing antibiotics.

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