الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
The terms “Special Care Dentistry” and “Special Needs Dentistry” are synonymous. Special Needs dentistry is concerned with a diverse group of people with a range of disabilities and complex additional needs, including people living at home, in long stay residential care and secure units, as well as people who are homeless. They are characterized by inability to express need or inability to access care because of a disability that reduces communication. They can be classified as four major types physical, developmental, behavioral and sensory. The present study adopted a cross sectional analytical design to assess the knowledge, attitude and reported practices of the post graduate program students in the faculty of Dentistry Alexandria University, regarding management of special needs patients especially physically disabled ones.
The total number of postgraduate students in the faculty constituted a sample of 435 dentists from the different departments. A minimal sample size of 251 dentists was estimated to be representative of the whole post graduate students. A proportional allocation sample was used to obtain the predetermined sample from all departments.
Data were collected throughout a six month period to obtain the final sample size (251 questionnaires). Accordingly, the response rate of the present study was 90.6%. A self-administered questionnaire based on intensive literature review was used and pilot tested to ensure clarity and consistency of the questions.
The questionnaire consisted of 33-items arranged in four sections: demographic data (10 questions), knowledge (8 questions), attitudes (8 statements), reported practices (13 questions). An alpha level was set to 5% with a significance level of 95%.
Almost 56.6% of the sample consisted of females and more than half of the sample (63.3%) graduated between the year 2010 and the year 2015. With regard to specialty, approximately 37% of the participants were prosthodontics and conservative dentists out of the remaining two thirds, 25% were oral surgeons, pedodontists, dental public health dentists and orthodontics respectively.
More than half of the dentists (68.1 %) reported that they did not have enough undergraduate courses regarding special care dentistry. Only 6% have attended continuing education courses.
When considering the level of knowledge of the surveyed dentists, data showed that pedodontists, dental public health and orthodontic students had the highest level of knowledge regarding physically disabled people and their management.
Concerning the practice scores, the specialties of pedodontics, dental public health and orthodontics showed excellent practices compared to other specialties. This could be attributed to the received specialized courses regarding special need patients during their postgraduate program.
Regarding main research question, it can be concluded that although the postgraduate students in Alexandria Faculty of Dentistry, had shown positive attitude and good practice skills towards special needs patients and their management, they do lack adequate knowledge regarding their important challenge.
Reforming measures should be taken by the dental schools to prepare future specialized dentists to face the ongoing challenges of their profession. The faculty should also increase the available resources and facilities as well as presents continuing education programs to the dentists to help them face both current and future expectations in the domain of special needs patients.