The phenomenological approach in dentistry - a narrative review.

PURPOSE: Phenomenology is a branch of philosophy that focuses on human lived experience. Illness including dental diseases can affect this living experience. Within the dental literature, there is very little reported on the use of phenomenology compared to other healthcare sciences. Hence, the aim was to review the literature and provide an overview of various applications of phenomenology in dental research. METHODS: This study was a narrative review using literature in the last 10 years identified by web-based search on PubMed and Scopus using keywords. A total of 33 articles that were closely related to the field and application in dentistry were included. The methodology, main results, and future research recommendations, if applicable, were extracted and reviewed. RESULTS: The authors in this study had identified several areas such as orofacial pain and pain control research, dental anxiety, dental education, oral healthcare perceptions and access, living with dental diseases and dental treatment experience in which the phenomenological method was used to gain an in-depth understanding of the topic. CONCLUSIONS: There are several advantages of using the phenomenological research method, such as the small sample size needed, the diverse and unique perspective that can be obtained and the ability to improve current understanding, especially from the first-person perspective.

Dental practitioners' knowledge, attitudes, and practices of ergonomics - a cross-sectional web-based survey.

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Dentistry is a profession known to have many occupational hazards, including biomechanical, ergonomic, and work factors. We aimed to evaluate dental practitioners' knowledge, attitudes, and practices of ergonomics and to evaluate the significant differences with age, sex, educational qualification and clinical experience. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional multi-centric web-based survey among dental practitioners of south India. Dentists who were involved in clinical practice in India with a minimum of 1-year experience were invited to participate in this study. Information on demographics (age, sex, education) and years of practice of the dental practitioners was collected. Knowledge attitude and practice questionnaire was adapted from El Salamy et al. Results: The mean age of the participants was 30.57 (SD=6.95). More than half of the respondents were female (60.1%). Dental practitioners who were less than 28 years old (OR: 0.57), graduates (OR: -0.47), and clinical experience less than three years (OR: -0.53) had a higher probability of having poor or fair knowledge scores. Dental practitioners who were more than 28 years old had a significantly higher probability of positive attitudes (OR: 0.6) and good practices (OR: 0.54). Practitioners with a master's degree had a higher probability of good practices (OR: 1.92). Practitioners with more than three years of clinical experience had a higher likelihood of good practices (OR: 1.72; 95% CI: 1.03 - 2.9). CONCLUSIONS: Overall, we could conclude that dental professionals had predominantly fair to good knowledge, positive attitudes and a high proportion of bad practices.