Purpose: To measure the general oral and dental health knowledge level of family medicine residents who are receiving full-time specialty training in Turkey. Primary care physicians can contribute to improving the oral and dental health of patients during general health services.
Materials and Methods: The fundamentals of oral and dental health that the family medicine physicians should know about were determined, and questionnaire items on these fundamentals were prepared. The sample size was calculated as 296 individuals. The survey was conducted online. The collected data were analysed employing the following tests: chi-squared, Fisher, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Spearman, ANOVA, Mann-Whitney U, Kruskal-Wallis, and Bonferroni.
Results: 302 family medicine residents in various clinics in Turkey participated in the study. The mean age of the participants was 29.6 ± 5.1. The mean knowledge scores of the resident physicians were calculated as 65.2 ± 10.9 (lowest: 27; highest: 92). The majority of resident physicians stated that they did not receive training on oral and dental health during their residency training, and that they agreed with the idea of integrating it into the residency training curriculum.
Conclusions: The general knowledge level of family medicine residents in Turkey about oral and dental health was found to be moderate.
Keywords: community dental health, family medicine, oral and dental health, preventive dentistry, preventive medicine
