An adequate understanding of the relationship between periodontal tissues and restorative dentistry is paramount to ensure adequate form, function, esthetics and comfort of the dentition. While most clinicians are aware of this important relationship, uncertainty remains regarding specific concepts such as biologic width, its maintenance and applications of crown lengthening in cases of biologic width violation. Relevant publications regarding biologic width, its violation and management were identified up to August 2011 using manual and electronic database search in Medline, Embase, Directory of Open Access Journals and Google Scholar. This review discusses the concept of biologic width around tooth and its relationship to periodontal health and restorative dentistry.
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE:
Dental students and practitioners are frequently prone to work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) due to the unawareness of ergonomic principles when practicing dentistry. The aim of this study was to assess the dental student knowledge, attitude, and practice toward ergonomics in three different dental schools.
METHODOLOGY:
A cross-sectional study was conducted among 1166 dental students from three different dental schools of Andhra Pradesh, India, to assess knowledge, attitude, and practice regarding ergonomics. All the participants were provided with prestructured questionnaire form comprising 13 questions to know their knowledge, attitude, and practice related to ergonomics before and after providing guidelines on ergonomic principles.
RESULTS:
The majority of the dental students appreciate that the most affected regions due to work-related disorders were back (475 before and 559 after instructions), neck (354 and 420), hand and wrist (205 and 117), and shoulder and elbow (132 and 70), respectively. Knowledge and practice scores of dental students (mean and standard deviation) regarding WMSDs before and after applying ergonomic principles were 3.92 ± 2.44, 1.29 ± 1.67 and 5.81 ± 0.87, 3.03 ± 0.60, respectively.
CONCLUSION:
The present study provides an insight into ergonomics for dental students during routine dental procedures. The knowledge, attitude, and practice related to ergonomics were satisfactorily increased among the participants. Thus, ergonomic education of the dental health-care personnel must be focused in all the educational institutions and at continuing dental health programs by delivering ergonomic principles both theoretically and practically and should be a part of the curriculum.
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