A Cross-Sectional Survey to Evaluate Acquaintance about Dental Photography among Dental Students in Daily Clinical Practice

Abstract

Background: In today’s world of digital dentistry, dental photography plays an important role as multilevel significance and represents the synonym of contemporary dentistry. Thus, we aimed at evaluating the acquaintance of practice, opportunity and morals of dental photography in everyday practice among undergraduate dental students. Design and Methods: The current research was an observational cross-sectional study. Total 233 students participated; each was given questionnaire consisted of three parts covering the following aspects: questions 1 to 3 on the practice of dental photography, questions 4 to 7 on morals in dental photography and question 8 to 11 on opportunities of dental photography. The answers were tabulated and statistically analysed and association with the factors were tested for significance using Chi-square tests, and P<0.05 was considered statistically significant.Results: The total response rate was 86%. Among the 201 respondents, 100 were males and 101 females; 96% male students were taking photographs and 93% females were taking photographs, on regular basis. Phone cameras (41.3%) were the most commonly used device followed by DSLR cameras. Surveyed students mentioned patient education (53.2%) as most needed requirement for taking photographs, followed by treatment planning (49.8%) and monitoring of the treatment outcome (34.3%). Ninety-one percent of students feel that there is an opportunity for advancement in dental photography techniques. Conclusions: The participants aware of dental photography, but they require detail insight on proper capturing of photographs and morals, with regards to confidentiality of the patient and patient consent.

Publishing Identifiable Patient Photographs in Scientific Journals: Scoping Review of Policies and Practices

“…The included studies were published between 1994 and 2020. Almost half of the studies (13/30, 43%) were published in open access [ 3 , 6 , 7 , 11 , 15 , 21 - 23 , 25 , 30 , 31 , 36 ]. The studies were performed in countries from all continents, from both high– and low–research-intensive countries.…”

“…Most of the studies (26/30, 87%) had an observational or cross-sectional design ( Table 1 ), 3% (1/30) were randomized controlled trials [ 6 ], 3% (1/30) used another experimental design [ 28 ], and 7% (2/30) used qualitative approaches [ 23 , 25 ]. Reported limitations were the small number of participants [ 8 , 12 , 26 , 27 , 34 ], pilot studies [ 22 ], a single type of health professional included [ 6 , 8 , 9 , 25 , 29 ], years of clinical practice for specialists [ 9 ], poor response rate [ 26 , 27 , 33 , 34 ], possibility of socially desirable answers [ 29 , 35 ], and a single study setting [ 21 , 22 , 25 , 29 ]. The limitations of the studies performed on data or journals were the small number of journals [ 7 , 36 ], small number of analyzed journal issues [ 2 ], filters for web-based image search, and the fluctuating number of available web-based images from academic journals [ 3 ].…”

“…The devices used for taking medical photographs included institutional cameras, personal cameras, and smartphones [ 9 , 29 , 38 ]. The device most often used for taking patient photographs was a personal camera (smartphone) [ 8 , 9 , 16 , 21 , 29 , 33 ], but 10% (3/30) of the studies showed that patients preferred to be photographed by their physicians using institutional cameras and in an institutional setting [ 10 , 15 , 37 ]. Patients considered that the use of personal devices, particularly smartphones, for taking medical photographs constituted a potential breach of patient-physician confidentiality [ 16 ].…”

“…Several studies (8/20, 40%) reported that both patients and physicians considered important to ensure secure data storage, maintenance of privacy, and controlled access to the images [ 8 , 9 , 14 , 16 , 26 , 29 , 30 , 37 ]. A total of 7% (2/30) of the studies reported that dental students and dentists lacked knowledge and training regarding the techniques of taking and managing patient photographs, including for the purpose of publishing [ 21 , 23 ].…”

“…We excluded 69% (68/98) of the studies as they addressed uses of facial photographs other than for publication in journals. This left 31% (30/98) of articles for analysis [2,3,[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][14][15][16][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38]. The flow diagram of the literature review is shown in Figure 1.…”