Eye care guidelines for dentists

Abstract EN

Objectives: To determine the current eye care habits of dentists in Jordan and to investigate the compliance of the dentists with the recommendations for regular eye examinations and guidelines for the use of Eye-Wear Protective devices.

Methods: This study was conducted prospectively on randomly selected practicing registered dentists in Jordan Dental Association and dentists working in three major Royal Medical Services (RMS) hospitals between July 2015 and December 2016.

The participants were called by phone to introduce them to the study and ask them to complete the questionnaire when they go to pay their monthly membership fees in Jordan Dental Association building.

The questionnaire was designed following the outlines of Dillman, and it included the followings: age, gender, dental practice specialty, current eye status, method of correction, frequency of refraction, frequency of eye clinic visit, reason for eye clinic visit, use of eye-wear protection device, and the use of magnifiers.

Results: Out of 140 questionnaires, only 83.6% were completed with full information and 16.4% were excluded because of missed data.

Out of the 117 respondents, 69.2% were males.

The average age was 33 ± 8.2 SD year.

The majority of participants were general practitioners (26.5%), and 53% of participants were emmetropes.

Of the 55 participants with refractive errors, 14 (25.5%) had refractive surgery.

There was a clinically significant effect of the refractive status of the eye on frequency of refraction and regular visits to eye clinic (P=0.0189, 0.0078, respectively).

More than 60% of participants with known refractive error(s) have refraction every 6 months, 1 year, or 2 years in comparison with 21% of emmetrope participants.

Eye-Wear Protective Devices (EWPD) were not used in 41.1%, rarely used in 33.3%, and only 3.4% are regular users.

Low percent of participant (6%) used magnification during their work.

Eye trauma was encountered in (37.6%) of participants who were not using Eye-Wear Protective Devices.

Conclusion: Significant Jordanian dentists were not aware of the importance of regular ophthalmic examination and were not taken the use of EWPD to prevent ocular morbidity seriously.

These findings encourage us to implement health programs to do regular eye examination and implement recommendations for use of EWPD by dentists and patients