The knowledge of dentists, dental specialists and residents of Lithuanian University of Health Sciences about xerostomia and its management in clinical practice

Relevance of the problem: xerostomia is a subjective sensation of dry mouth which can occur even when a normal salivary flow is present. According to the literature data the prevalence of xerostomia varies and ranges from 0,1% to 72%. The aim of the work: to evaluate the knowledge of dentists of LUHS about xerostomia’s etiological factors and clinical features and to determine the management of xerostomia in clinical practice. Materials and methods: 129 questionnaires were delivered to the dentists of LUHS 98 of which were answered and handed in. The contingent of the research consisted of 49 general dentists and 49 dental specialists. In the first part of the questionnaire the respondents were asked about their experience with patients complaining about mouth dryness and the second part of the questionnaire aimed at evaluating the dentists’ knowledge about the symptom. The knowledge was evaluated by summing up all the right and wrong answers of each question. The statistical analysis was made by using Statistica 13.0 program. The statistical significance of the distribution of the answers of each question was calculated by chi-square criteria and the dependency of two variables was calculated applying Spearman’s correlation coefficient. The results were treated as statistically significant when p < 0,05. Results: the level of knowledge about the medications that may cause xerostomia was higher of those dentists who had 10 or more years of clinical practice (p = 0,002) and it did not depend on professional qualification. There was a direct proportion between taking the anamnesis about mouth dryness and a higher number of patients with xerostomia treated (p = 0,000002). Conclusions: xerostomia mostly affects people aged over 60 and dentists should pay greater attention to taking the anamnesis about mouth dryness from the patients of this risk group. It is also necessary to pay attention to the medications used by patients and other risk factors that might be the reason of xerostomia