Journal de recherche médico-légale

Perception of Forensic Odontology and its Practice among the Local Dentists of an Institution

Abstract

Shivani Bhakhri, Arshroop Kaur, Karanprakash Singh, Mahijeet Singh Puri, Navgeet Puri and Chitra Anandani

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.