Professional Ethical Consideration in Esthetic Dental Practice: A Survey among Dentists in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Objective: The purpose of the study was to assess the professional ethical consideration in esthetic dental practice of the dentists practicing in Ar-Riyadh region, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Materials and methods: A modified version of the questionnaire on dental ethics in esthetic dentistry (Bernstein, 2008), written in both English and Arabic was prepared. The questionnaire, designed to obtain information from dentists regarding their beliefs in ethics in esthetic dentistry was administered to dentists practicing in the Ar-Riyadh region of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The study comprised of 305 participants who returned the completed questionnaire. Results: In total, 400 questionnaires were distributed with an overall response rate of 76.25%. The respondents comprised of 256 Saudi and 49 non-Saudi dentists. The role of the dentists in persuading and encouraging patients to have cosmetic treatment and the role that a patient’s finances played in influencing esthetic dental treatment, tooth reduction was not found to be significant for different clinical titles, gender and years of experience except Saudi dentists who reported significantly higher emphasis on the role of the dentist in persuading and encouraging the patient to undergo cosmetic treatment. A significant majority of the dentists stated that they would reduce less than 2mm of tooth structure and they had a full obligation to TMJ and occlusion while performing an esthetic procedure and also they reported journals as a source of their information Conclusion: Within the limitation of the study it can be concluded that ethics comprises of basic values and practice issues, Basic values do not change however, practice issues may be influenced by experience and clinical title and It is interesting that gender does not seem to influence the ethics of practicing esthetic dentistry, so as ending ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do, and what is right to do.