Awareness of dental interns in managing cases of pregnant women in Saudi Arabia

Pregnant patients are seen commonly in dental offices. However, the possible side effects of dental care on these patients can be misunderstood by both patients and dentists concerned. Therefore, it is important for dental interns, who work in almost every dental office, to know about dental management of pregnant women.

A survey which consisted of 18 items, was conducted between December 2011 and March 2012 in different dental colleges in Saudi Arabia. The aim of the present study was to objectify dental interns’ knowledge of dental management of pregnant women.

152 dental interns responded to the survey (63.3% of the total). About 27% of dental interns in the study had never seen pregnant women in their clinic. The majority of dental interns see gingival inflammation as the most oral manifestation in pregnant women (92.1%), and Amoxicillin being the most common antibiotic prescribed for pregnant women (96.1%), when (96.1%) of the dental interns are prescribing it. Regarding their dental school subjects which include managing pregnant women, 29.6% of the dental interns described it as adequate, while 48% said it was little helpful, and 22.4% agreed that it was insufficient. However only 20.4% look for more additional sources of information, while 14.5% said they rarely do. This finding underscores the need to improve the knowledge and information of fundamentals of dental management of pregnant women. Improvement is needed to increase the awareness of dental interns in Saudi Arabia toward this kind of critical treatment.