Dental Record Keeping by General Dental Practitioners in Lahore

Abstract

Objective: of this study is to analyze the behavior/attitude of general dental practitioners towards record keeping and quality assessment of patient records found in different dental practices of Lahore. Study design: Cross sectional, Descriptive, Questionnaire based study (Copy of questionnaire attached). Place and Duration of Study: Data collection for this study was conducted in different private dental practices of Lahore from Oct-2017 to Dec-2017. Methods; A random sample of 60 dental practices were selected by means of stratified sampling from different towns of Lahore. Dentists were interviewed and patient records were checked for data collection which is analyzed using SPSS version 23. Results: Interview of 43 dentists and analysis of patient records from their practices revealed that 16 (37.2%) practices have no record at all and even none of the remaining 27 (62.8%) practices. Who claim to have patient records, has any properly completed record. Shows that dentists have got very casual behavior towards record keeping as most of them were not having any records and the remaining ones who claimed to have patient records, were maintaining them in a very poor form. Conclusion: Female dentists, postgraduates and dentists working in group practices and affluent areas were found to have relatively more tendency towards record keeping. Recommendation; Dentist training institutes and health implementing authorities are the main areas which need to be stressed upon for improvement of record keeping. Keywords: (MESH) Record keeping, Dental photography, Dentist, Post-graduate, Health authorities, Affluent areas.