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Introduction: Many patients consult general practitioners instead of dentists for their oral and dental problems every year. This study aims to find the reasons why patients consult general practitioners when they have dental problems., Methods: The sample consisted of patients visiting dentists and general practitioners in Kerman, Iran. A thematic interview guide, semi-structured questions, and a mind map that allowed for structured and open-ended questions were prepared and used for the interviews. All interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim by a final-year student. Data collection, transcription, and analysis were conducted simultaneously to allow for new topics to be raised and theoretical saturation to be reached. When researchers determined that sufficient information was available for analysis and understanding of patient opinions and beliefs, the interview process was stopped. As all audio conversations were recorded with the participant's permission, no note-taking was done during the interviews, which allowed for greater focus on the participants' conversation. The obtained data was analyzed using the content analysis., Results: A total of 52 patients were included in this study. The codes related to patients participating in this research, along with the number of respondent groups related to each code were as follows: patient's perceptions of general practitioner(GP) and dental practitioner's scope of work [21], flawed dental system (34), dental anxiety [28], financial considerations [25], and more accessibility to GPs (31). Dental abscesses and dental pain were reported as the most common reasons for consulting GPs., Conclusion: Most participants agreed that dental problems are more effectively treated by dentists. Reasons for visiting a general practitioner included lack of a specific dentist, dissatisfaction with dental treatments, lack of a dentist nearby, absence of emergency dental care, and familiarity with a physician. The most common reasons for visits were toothache and dental abscesses. Patients also sought treatment for TMJ pain, referred nerve pain, wisdom tooth pain, numbness and tingling in the jaw, gum inflammation, oral lesions, and ulcers. Furthermore, other factors such as opening hours, appointment systems and waiting time can also affect patient's consult behaviors regarding dental problems., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Introduction: Fluoride is the main factor in reducing the prevalence of caries worldwide. However, there is insufficient knowledge about whether people in different age groups are aware of the benefits of fluoride toothpaste, as well as about people's daily oral care habits and whether they use fluoride. The purpose of this research is to investigate the knowledge and performance of Iranian students regarding the use of toothpaste containing fluoride., Method: This study was conducted on the first- and second-year high school students of Kerman city. Questionnaires containing personal questions, general questions, and questions related to students' knowledge and performance regarding the use of fluoride toothpaste were provided to them and then they were asked to complete and submit it. The results obtained from the survey were analyzed by T-test, Mann-Whitney test, and Chi-Square test in SPSS Version 24. The significance level in data analysis was P < 0.05., Results: In this research, 681 forms including 252 boys and 429 girls were examined. The average age of the participants was 14.1 ± 0.4. 91.2% declared that they use toothpaste and 77.8% of them used toothpaste containing fluoride. 521 people stated that the price of toothpaste is important in using the type of toothpaste. 621 people used regular toothbrush and 609 people evaluated their oral health as good. 621 of the participants stated that toothpaste makes the mouth healthy. The average knowledge score was 16.7 ± 2.1 out of 24, which indicates the average knowledge of students in this field., Conclusion: This study showed that students' knowledge and performance about using fluoride-containing toothpaste is average. There was no significant relationship between performance and knowledge with age and gender. There was also a positive correlation between knowledge and performance indicating that increasing knowledge leads to an increase in behavioral changes. Also, there was a positive correlation between knowledge and performance, and a correlation coefficient of 0.731 was obtained between knowledge and performance. It shows that increasing knowledge leads to increasing behavioral changes., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Introduction: Oral Lichen Planus (OLP) is a chronic and relatively common mucocutaneous disease that often affects the oral mucosa. Although, OLP is generally not life-threatening, its consequences can significantly impact the quality of life in physical, psychological, and social aspects. Therefore, the aim of this research is to investigate the relationship between clinical symptoms of OLP and oral health-related quality of life in patients using the OHIP-14 (Oral Health Impact Profile-14) questionnaire., Materials and Methods: This descriptive-analytical study has a cross-sectional design, with case-control comparison. In this study, 56 individuals were examined as cases, and 68 individuals were included as controls. After recording demographic characteristics and clinical features by reviewing patients' records, the OHIP-14 questionnaire including clinical severity of lesions assessed using the Thongprasom scoring system, and pain assessed by the Visual Analog Scale (VAS) were completed. The ADD (Additive) and SC (Simple Count) methods were used for scoring, and data analysis was performed using the T-test, Mann-Whitney U test, Chi-Square, Spearman's Correlation Coefficient, and SPSS 24., Results: Nearly all patients (50 individuals, 89.3%) reported having pain, although the average pain intensity was mostly mild. This disease has affected the quality of life in 82% of the patients (46 individuals). The patient group, in comparison to the control group, significantly expressed a lower quality of life in terms of functional limitations and physical disability. There was a statistically significant positive correlation between clinical symptoms of OLP, gender, location (palate), and clinical presentation type (erosive, reticular, and bullous) of OLP lesions with OHIP-14 scores, although the number or bilaterality of lesions and patient age did not have any significant correlation with pain or OHIP scores., Conclusion: It appears that certain aspects of oral health-related quality of life decrease in patients with OLP, and that of the OLP patient group is significantly lower in terms of functional limitations and physical disability compared to the control group. Additionally, there was a significant correlation between clinical symptoms of OLP and pain as well as OHIP scores., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Introduction: The journals must have an instruction for writers to observe the essential ethical principles like privacy-preserving, secrecy, and keeping the patients' identities hidden. Even though patient secrecy is an important ideology in medicine's ethics, most journals have a little guide on this topic for the authors. According to the absence of such studies in dentistry and limited studies in medicine, our goal in this article is to review the opinions of professors, Kerman dentistry students, and patients for publishing the patient images in the articles., Method: This research is an analytical, sectional, and descriptive study. The studied society includes the professors of the dentistry faculty (54 people), the 4th to 6th years dentistry students (122 people), and 129 patients who referred to the offices, the faculty, and other clinics in Kerman city base on simple random sampling method. A query including the personal questions, and questions related to the participants' opinions about publishing the images was given to contributors. Abundance, average tables, chi-square (χ 2) test, T-test, and SPSS 21 software were used for data description., Results: The contributors' attitudes were different in three groups of participants: more than half of the patients (58.91%), 39.5% of students, and 31.38% of professors believed that no permission is needed. While, 64.34% of the patients, 89.34% of students, and 83.3% of professors believed that written permission is needed for publishing., Conclusion: From the participants' viewpoints, more strict forms are needed by increasing identity recognizability. The professors are more eager than the patients to receive patients' permission for any kind of image. By reducing the level of identification, doctors and students are more eager than patients to receive approvals., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Objective: There has been shown a relationship between "tongue coating" and "Simplified Oral Health Index, periodontal status, modified mallampati classification (MMC) of the oropharynx and oral malodor". The purpose of this study is to assess the frequency of tongue coating and relative factors (sex, age, smoking, systemic disease and oral health indices) among patients referred to Dental School of Kerman University., Methods: In this cross sectional study 250 patients referred to dental school of Kerman university of medical sciences were examined. The data collection form was included demographic data (gender, age, history of systemic disease and smoking) and Oral health indices such as TCI (Tongue coating index), OHI-S (Simplified Oral Hygiene Index), MGI (Modified Gingival Index), MMC and lost teeth. The analysis have been done using SPSS21, T-test, Pearson correlation coefficient and linear regression analysis (significance level was set at less than 0.05)., Results: Tongue coating has been shown in 96% of patients with the mean percent of 45.83 ± 19.16%. Men had higher percent of TCI though it was not statistically significant. Smoking was the strongest determinant factor in people with higher TCI scores (P = 0.013). There was a positive significant correlation between OHI-S and TCI [(Pearson's coefficient(r) = 0.134, P = 0.034)]., Conclusion: TCI appears to be related to smoking and Simplified Oral Health Index. The evaluation of tongue coating is necessary to assess its impact on oral health status and also to motivate patients to clean their tongue as a part of their oral health care routine., (© 2023. BioMed Central Ltd., part of Springer Nature.)