Visual Enhancement and Experiences with Magnification Devices among the undergraduate dental students and Interns around Makkah region– A Questionnaire based study.

Life Sciences-Periodontitis for Dental Health

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the level of knowledge, awareness, attitude, and use of magnification devices by Dental students and Interns among various universities in Makkah region of Saudi Arabia. Objective of the study was to accentuate the importance of using magnification in Dental procedures performed by dental students and Interns. A cross-sectional, questionnaire based study was conducted in Ibn Sina National College for Medical studies, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The study population was selected using cluster random sampling. This questionnaire was sent online to 500 dental students and interns, out of which 300 of them responded. The data were tabulated and analyzed using (SPSS) version 21. Chi-square test was used to analyze the data and a P-value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant, whereas a p-value of less than 0.001 was considered strongly significant. Among the study population, 98.30% (n=295) were aware of utilization of magnification devices in prosthodontic procedures, only 35.70% (n=107) of them attended courses on the magnification devices in the dental field. 85.3% (n= 256) of them felt surgical loupes would be useful for endodontic procedures and 52.3% (n=157) of them felt surgical loupes would be useful during prosthodontic procedures, 224 (74.70%) of them felt surgical loupes enhanced precision and accuracy, 52.00% (n=156) of them felt surgical loupes reduced eye strain, and 58.00% (n=174) felt surgical loupes improved ergonomics. The present study revealed that majority of the dental students and interns were aware of magnification devices used in dentistry and only a few of them attended courses on the use of magnification devices and majority of them believed that the surgical loupes will be useful for endodontic and prosthodontic procedures. Most of them experienced reduced eye strain, enhanced precision and accuracy and improved working speed and ergonomics by using surgical loupes.