Abstract
Statement of the problem: Infective endocarditis is a rare disease of the heart valves and endocardium, whichdevelops after invasive dental procedures. Despite a large number of reports, little is known about awareness of this condition.
Purpose: The aim of this study was to determine the level of the knowledge of general dental practitioners (GDPs) in Hamadan about prophylactic prescription of antibiotics to prevent infective endocarditis.
Materials and methods: This cross-sectional descriptive analytical study was carried out in Hamadan in 2011. Ninety GDPs participated in this study and filled out a questionnaire. One-way ANOVA andchi-squared test were used for statistical analysis of data.
Results: The knowledge levels of GDPs about cardiac diseases, dental procedures requiring prophylaxis and endocarditis prophylaxis regimens were 62.4%, 64.9% and 42.1%, respectively. The overall knowledge in all the three parts was 56.1%. The relationship between level of GDPs’ knowledge and gender was not statistically significant (P=0.07). The knowledge level of the 25‒30 age group was higher than that of other groups and the difference was statistically significant (P=0.04). The 1‒5 job experience group had the highest level of knowledge. Regarding prescription of prophylactic antibiotics for patients with prosthetic cardiac valves, 93.65% of the answers were correct. The most common procedures in which prophylactic antibiotics were deemed necessary were periodontal surgery (94.95%), tooth extraction (93.5%) and scaling and root planing (93.15%). 77.1% of the dentists had chosen amoxicillin as the first choice for prophylaxis.
Conclusions: Results of this study showed that the level of knowledge of GDPs about prophylaxis for endocarditis was satisfactory.