Abstract

Globally, 425 million people have diabetes mellitus (D.M). It is well established that diabetes is associated with oral manifestations which display an increased risk of oral disorders. It is estimated that approximately 5% of all patients seen in dental offices have diabetes. Considering the large number of patients with undiagnosed diabetes who visit the dentists were well-positioned dentists will be able to detect undiagnosed cases early by recognizing oral manifestations and referring suspected to a physician for further diagnostic workup. Dental professionals being a part of health care team members, also share the responsibility of screening and counseling patients for various systemic and infectious diseases.
The aim of this study is to examine students' attitudes towards diabetes counseling, monitoring, and screening.
A cross-sectional survey for 372 from the first and fifth-year students, who completed the self-administrated questionnaires during Nov 2017, was conducted. Most dental students agree with educating patients about the risk of diabetes to oral and overall health and wellbeing, which consider part of their professional responsibility with an interesting agreement for referring patients with high blood glucose to medical evaluation. Less than half of students believe that dental professional time can be spent on other things rather than obtaining blood glucose for patients and more than half of them consider the use of glucometer in dental practice for screening, monitoring, and reading within the scope of dental practice. Attitudes of students for diabetes education, monitoring, and screening play an important role in future dealing with the patients in real practice.