Knowledge and orientations of medical interns toward periodontal disease in Saudi Arabia

Background and Aim: This study was conducted to assess the periodontal knowledge, orienta ons of Saudi medical interns and the medical curriculum. Study Popula on and Methodology: Ques onnaires were distributed to 221 medical interns chosen randomly from two major educa onal ins tu ons in Saudi Arabia. Ques ons were developed from literature reviews. The ques onnaire had ve true/false knowledge items, and eight Likert-scale ques ons. Data were analyzed by computerized SPSS (version 20). Level of signi cance was set at P < 0.05. Results: Of the 221 respondents, 66% were male and 34% were female. Most of the par cipants were 24 years old (48%). About 40% of the interns answered all ve true/false general knowledge ques ons correctly, nearly half of the respondents (49.8%) reported they never asked pa ents if they were diagnosed with periodontal disease, 93.2% reported not receiving any training about periodontal disease in medical school, 23.5% reported they would feel absolutely uncomfortable performing a simple periodontal examina on, about one-third of interns (29.4%) agreed that pa ents expect physicians to discuss/screen for periodontal disease, 43.9% felt that discussing/evalua ng the periodontal status of their pa ents was peripheral to their role as physicians, nearly half of interns (48.4%) reported never screening pa ents for periodontal disease, and 33% stated they never referred pa ents to den sts. Conclusion: Medical interns were not prepared nor trained to screen pa ents for periodontal disease. They had limited knowledge about the associa on between periodontal health and general health. Oral health training as part of the medical curriculum is strongly recommended.