Survey of dentists of knowledge about radiographic localization methods

Objective: To verify dentists’ about radiographic localization methods. Methods: A field survey was conducted among 60 dentists, of whom 25 were general clinicians and 35 were specialists dentists, using a questionnaire with 14 discursive questions, where they could express their Knowledge about which radiographic localization techniques are known and how to interpret them. Results: It was verified that the Clark technique was most known by 92% of the general clinicians, followed by Le Master ( 16%). In the group of specialists, Clark was also ranked first by 86%, followed by the Miller Winter technique by 29%. By means of a routine clinical situation we analyzed whether the dentists knew how to interpret the Clark technique, and the results showed that among the general clinicians 56% knew how to interpret the technique, 32% gave the incorrect answer and 12% answered that they did not know. Among the specialists, 74% knew how to interpret the technique and 26% answered incorrectly. The general clinicians (72%) declared that they most frequently used the Clark technique, as the time since they graduated increased. However, only 56% of them gave the correct interpretation in the clinical situation presented in the question. Conclusion: This, it could be concluded that Clark is the best known technique among dentists (specialist or general clinicians), but they do not necessary know how to interpret it. Moreover, it was shown that the others techniques are hardly known, which leads to the conclusion that one needs to rethink the curriculum, so that they receive more emphasis, as they are equally important.