Affiliation:
1. SIBAR Institute of Dental Sciences
2. Kalinga Institute of Dental Sciences
3. Drs.Sudha & Nageswara Rao Siddhartha Institute of Dental Sciences
Abstract
Forensic odontology (FO) involves examination, proper evaluation and presentation of dental evidence before the court of law. Globally, forensic odontology (FO) has been a benchmark in advance teaching. Dentists are the oral health professionals who have a high chance of identifying bite marks and signs of abuse. Dentists in India were less into the field of forensic odontology than the western countries.
Objectives: To assess the knowledge, awareness, attitude, and behavior on FO among dental undergraduate students in a dental institution.
Method: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 273 dental undergraduate students with a 15 itemed self administered questionnaire in a dental institution located in the state of Andhra Pradesh, South India.
Result: The statistical analysis was carried out through descriptives and chi-square test with the statistical significance set as p<0.05 in SPSS software version 20.0. A total of 273 students participated in the survey, 83.9% of them aware that DNA can serve as identification. 93.1% know tooth can be used for dental age estimation. 61.9% of participants know the forensic odontology from the books. 60.8% of participants were aware of the application of forensic odontology in the investigation. 66.7% were lack of adequate knowledge of forensic odontology. 65.6% of participants agreed that they aware of bite mark patterns of teeth. 58.6% of participants aware that DNA can be collected from the bite mark. More than 85% of the students contracted that cheiloscopy is a study of lip prints. 67.4% of participants agreed on the forensic odontology as a department of its specialty rather than interdisciplinary.
Conclusion: We observed a student’s has good exposure to scope, importance, and opportunity about FO among UG students, This study stimulates further research to uplifting of forensic odontology in the future.
Keywords: Awareness, Forensic odontology, Survey
Publisher
Indian Dental Association
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