Objectives: To examine the knowledge and attitude towards dentist-industry relationship including accepting gifts, influence on decisions, and accuracy of given information among dentists working in Saudi Arabia. In addition, to examine the association of such knowledge and attitude of dentists' behavior with industry, including sorts of interaction and accepting industrial gifts.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among dental practitioners working in the private and governmental hospitals located in the various regions of Saudi Arabia. A self-administrated questionnaire was developed and distributed to all participants. Fourteen questions assessed the socio-demographic, economic, and occupational characteristics of the participants including age, gender, nationality, monthly revenue, income satisfaction, hospital setting, job rank, specialty, and patients' socio- economic status. Seventeen questions assessed the interaction with DSRs, acceptance and characteristics of gifts and opinion of dentists regarding gift acceptance in dental practice. One-Way ANOVA and t-test was used to examine differences in transformed scores by socio-demographic, occupations and outcome characteristics. All P-values were two-tailed. P-value < 0.05 was considered as significant.
Results: Total of 672 participants responded to general questions related to the knowledge and attitude. The mean of the overall knowledge and attitude score was 64.3 ± 7.2, general questions score was 63.1 ± 8.6 and interaction questions score was 66.9 ± 8.0. Approximately, 40% of participants disagreed that accepting industrial gifts can affect their own decisions but slightly lower proportion (25%) disagreed that accepting industrial gifts can affect decisions of other dentists. Only 25% of participants thought it is ethical to accept industrial gifts and even fewer proportions (20%) believed that dental supply representatives (DSRs) always provide accurate information about their new materials. Almost two-thirds of participants trusted information from other sources than from DSRs. On the other hand, 40% of the participants were against banning industrial gifts to dentists and approximately 50% were against informing the patients about the industrial gifts given to their dentist by dental companies.
Conclusions: There was insufficient knowledge and an overall positive attitude towards the dental industry among the sample of dentists in Saudi Arabia. Well-designed ethical education programs should be implemented to enhance knowledge and attitudes about the interactions with dental industry.
Keywords: Attitude; Dentist-industry; Industrial gifts; Knowledge.