RESUMO
Advances in medical sciences have increased the volume of medical records and documents. In order to solve this problem, the information technology [IT] is now being applied to improve health care. This study aimed to assess the knowledge of dentists about IT and its application by them. In this analytical cross-sectional study, a validated questionnaire was distributed among 220 dentists participating in the 52[nd] International Congress of Iranian Dental Association and 120 dentists working in Tehran and included 7 questions about knowledge, 8 questions about background, 10 questions about general use of IT and 3 questions about the professional use of IT. The data were entered into SPSS version 18 software and the statistical analyses were performed by regression modeling. Of a total of 340 general practitioners, 30.4% were males and 11 dentists [3.6%] stated that they had no access to a personal computer. Some of the most popular sites visited by dentists were Google [94.3%] and Facebook social networking site [69.8%]. Among the participants, 64.5% were not familiar with any website related to their special field of work. The mean knowledge score was 5.3 [SD= 2.5]. The application of professional IT was more common among men and among those with higher general use of IT. Most dentists participated in this study had insufficient knowledge about professional IT. The general and professional use of IT was poor by dentists and further instruction and training seem necessary in this respect