Forensic Odontology: Knowledge and Attitude of Dental Students in Ajman University, United Arab Emirates (original) (raw)
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Perception of Forensic Odontology and its Practice among the Local Dentists of an Institution
Journal of Forensic Research, 2017
Forensic odontology has developed as one of the admired and significant branches of forensic sciences. Therefore, the main intention of the study is to scrutinize the perception of forensic odontology and its practice among the dental practitioners. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 152 subjects including interns, BDS staff and MDS staff through a questionnaire proforma. The proforma consisting of 16 questions was prepared on the topic of forensic odontology. The student's t-test and ANOVA test were used as tests of significance for data assessment and the statistical significance was set at p<0.05. In this study, 85% of dental practitioners maintain dental records and the most frequently used method among all is to record patient details (25.50%) which is followed by dental history (21.20%). Dental hard tissue (48.5%) and DNA (41.4%) examination were considered the ideal method of identification in case of mass disasters. Overall understanding of the theme seemed to be superior in senior faculty. This study shows that although there is an adequate knowledge and good attitude among dental practitioners regarding forensic odontology, yet they need more exposure from practical point of view.
Forensic odontology: A peek into the mind of dentists
International journal of oral health dentistry, 2022
Background: Our study's objective was to evaluate the knowledge, attitudes, and understanding of forensic odontology in undergraduate and postgraduate students in Uttarakhand. Materials and Methods: This is a cross-sectional institution-based study conducted among a total of 465 undergraduate and postgraduate dental students in the state of Uttarakhand. These included 428 undergraduate and 37 post graduate students. Males 94 (20.2%) and females 371 (79.8%) aged between 18 to 40 years were included. Results: A statistically significant difference was also found among the responses received on the questions whether forensic odontology played a role in mass disasters and if teeth could serve as a source of DNA amongst both the groups. 94.5% of the postgraduate respondents were aware of the significance of bite mark patterns of teeth as opposed to 54.4% of undergraduates which was also statistically significant. Conclusion: Our study revealed that postgraduate students had better knowledge, attitude and awareness about forensic odontology as compared to the undergraduate students. Both the groups together lacked adequate knowledge about forensic odontology but agreed that there is a scope in this field of dentistry and were interested in further courses to learn about the study of forensic odontology. This is an Open Access (OA) journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.
Knowledge and Awareness of Forensic Odontology among Dental Professionals of Karachi, Pakistan
Deleted Journal, 2019
Introduction: Forensic dentistry is a challenging and fascinating branch of forensic science that involves the application of dental sciences in the identification of deceased individuals through the comparison of ante and postmortem records. (1) Objective: The research will not only highlight the need of implementing Forensic Odontology training in undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum in the country by investigating knowledge and awareness of dental professionals towards Forensic Odontology specially related to identification, age, mass disasters and child abuse Methods:A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in 8 private and public dental colleges after approval from institutional authorities to assess knowledge and awareness of forensic Odontology among dental professionals in Karachi Results: Most of the research participants (84.9%) denied having any experience related to medico-legal cases. For both genders of respondents, 69% thought their knowledge was not sufficient to give medico-legal opinion. In addition, approximately 79.3% of them did not receive any formal training for collecting and preserving dental evidence. However, a vast majority of respondents (75 %) dentists want Forensic Odontology to be included as a separate subject in the undergraduate curriculum Conclusion:By including Forensic Odontology as a separate subject in the undergraduate curriculum and as a speciality in postgraduate curriculum, dentists will gain knowledge of theoretical and practical aspects of analysis and preservation of dental evidence.
Forensic odontology in the 21st century - Identifying the opinions of those behind the teaching
Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, 2019
From the 19th century, society has been aided by Forensic Odontology and the teaching practice has rapidly expanded in the last 30 years. Information about academics and teaching topics can be found in literature but any research has never investigated the basic profile of lecturers by survey. The aim of this study was to explore the lecturers' opinions on teaching the subject in the 21st century and its current standing. Even though the number of forensic dentists is not low worldwide, not all are involved with teaching. A total of 36 dentists (26 males, 10 females) from 19 countries answered to a survey of eight-questions. Results showed a high prevalence of males (84.6% postgraduate) as opposed of 100% of women postgraduate. Forensic ‘dental identification’, ‘overview of forensic dentistry’ and ‘DVI’ were topics widely taught and ‘bite mark analysis’ was considered the most difficult one. The ‘lack of funding’ was the greatest limitation (36.1%) followed by ‘lack of recognition and case work’ (equally 30.6%). Past problems continue to jeopardize this field and forensic dental bodies should formally liaise with universities and dental councils for the complete expansion of it.
A call for a new speciality: Forensic odontology as a subject
Journal of Forensic Dental Sciences, 2014
Background: Forensic science is defined as a discipline concerned with the application of science and technology to the detection and investigation of crime and administration of justice, requiring the coordinated efforts of a multidisciplinary team. Dental identification remains one of the most reliable and frequently applied methods of identification. Hence, it can be defined as the science that deals with evidence from the dental and oral structures and is a specialty in itself. Objectives: To analyze the level of awareness of Forensic Odontology amongst the individuals from the field of dentistry with the help of a survey. Materials and Methods: A questionnaire was prepared and a survey was conducted with a sample size of 200 divided in four groups. Results: Revealed inadequate knowledge, poor attitude, and lack of practice of forensic odontology prevailing among the dentists. Conclusion: Our study reflects the current situation of our country in the field of forensic odontology, which could be improved by introducing forensic odontology as a subject in the dental curriculum at both the undergraduate and the postgraduate levels.
Awareness of dental students about forensic odontology in Karachi, Pakistan
2020
BACKGROUND AND AIM: Forensic odontology is a neglected field of dentistry despite its importance in profession. It must be considered as part of dental curriculum and undergraduate students must have insight into the subject. The objective of this study was to evaluate the awareness of dental graduates regarding forensic dentistry in Karachi, Pakistan. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted from January to June 2019 among different dental colleges of Karachi. About 500 participants including house officers, postgraduate trainees, and dental teaching faculty were recruited through convenience sampling. Inclusion criteria were undergraduate and graduate dental students of recognized dental colleges who verbally consented for study. All quacks and non-registered practitioners were excluded. A predesigned questionnaire was used to collect data which consists of two sections, i.e., basic demographic data and knowledge of dental practitioners regarding forensic dentistry, respecti...
Developing an educational training module in forensic odontology: A proposal for dental curriculum
Egyptian Journal of Forensic Sciences, 2014
A number of methods have been introduced in scientific literature to study the lip print and palatal rugae; still there is a need for more descriptive and self-explanatory methods. Awareness regarding practical knowledge of cheiloscopy and palatoscopy is ambiguous among dental professionals. In the present work, an effort was made to introduce an educational training module for dental professionals with a view to improving the data recording and interpretation methods. A computer aided statistical method has also been suggested, i.e., systematic stage-wise filtering to test the uniqueness of lip and palatal rugae patterns. In this study, dental professionals were asked to match random lip and palatal rugae patterns before and after training. Proportions of accurate matching pre-and post-training were then compared. A systematic stage-wise filtering method was used to prove the uniqueness of lip prints and palatal rugae in large samples. It was observed that the educational training module helped to improve the ability of dental professionals in identifying individuals based on lip prints and palatal rugae. Application of systematic stage-wise filtering technique eased the process of checking the uniqueness of patterns.
2019
Background: Forensic odontology is an expanding field within the domain of forensic sciences, where dental knowledge is applied in identification of individual(s) through analysis of the dental related records. In this study we aimed to assess the knowledge, awareness and practices of dentists in the field of forensic odontology. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted over 248 dentists practicing in teaching hospitals as well as private practice in Karachi, Pakistan. Multiple close-ended questions were answered by the respondents, in which their knowledge and awareness about forensic odontology was evaluated. They were also asked about their practices of maintaining dental records of the patients. Results: Majority of the dentists had knowledge about importance of forensics in dentistry (86.2%) and mostly (88.7%) were aware that they could be of help to forensics experts if they maintain proper records. But when asked about their practices in maintaining dental records, o...
2020
Forensic odontology (FO) is taught worldwide but was not being taught in Pakistan until recently. This study aimed to assess awareness and acknowledgement of FO amongst dental faculty members and students of dental institutes in Pakistan at the undergraduate level. Two sets of questionnaires (Q_1-faculty/Q_2-students) consisting of 12 close-ended questions were distributed in 34 public/private dental institutes. Data was qualitatively analysed in Microsoft Excel 2018. A total of 145(Q_1) and 1017(Q_2) responses were received. 98 % dental faculty members and 86 % students believed FO should be taught to Pakistan's undergraduates. According to 56 % dental faculty members, FO should be taught as an independent subject as opposed to other members who suggested to merge FO with Oral Biology (32.4 %) or Oral & Maxillo-Facial Surgery (24.1 %). The teaching should take place during the second last or final year (68 %) with a weekly schedule of one-hour class session (53.8 %). Results also showed 80 % students are interested in receiving formal training. They expressed great interest in human identification and facial reconstruction. In conclusion, the dental council of Pakistan must liaise with dental institutes in order to devise a framework of guidelines or minimum requirements to deliver the teaching in FO.
Journal of Forensic Science and Medicine, 2020
Dental anatomy and histology is one of the fundamental subjects and a key to comprehend the act of dentistry. Dental features such as tooth morphology and variations in shape and size play a vital role in the area of forensic odontology. Forensic odontology is a challenging field that involves the application of such knowledge of dental sciences in the identification of deceased individuals. The aim and objective was to assess and evaluate the knowledge, attitude, and practice regarding dental anatomy and histology in forensic investigation among dental practitioners. A cross-sectional survey was carried out among 217 dental practitioners from Maharashtra who in their day-today life may experience instances of forensic interest. The information was collected through telephonic interview by means of a pretested, close-ended questionnaire. In our study, the general awareness about forensic odontology was found to be more among MDS dental practitioners than BDS dental practitioners. Overall, there is a lack of adequate legal knowledge and forensic practices among the dentists of Mumbai and Nagpur. However, the practitioners did have a positive attitude toward the field and were keen to learn more about it. The study is the first of its kind to be conducted in Maharashtra state of India regarding dental anatomy and histology with respect to forensic odontology. The dental practitioners were also aware about the dental anatomy and dental histology with respect to forensic investigation.