"Ethical Omissions by Private Dental Practices in Lahore City and their Implications"

Nadia Aman; Muhammad Umair Dastgir Bhatti; Sanaa Masood Aslam; Ayma Syed; adia Rashid; Muhammad Adnan Iqbal

Abstract:

Introduction: A disciplined dental clinic is preceded by ethical practices and trust between the dentist and the patient. Although ethical guidelines for professional conduct have been in place in Pakistan for clinical dental practices, it seems that many private individual clinics are not fully aware of these standards and are negligent in flowing them in true letter and spirt in one way or another. Objectives: To assess omissions in ethical standards set by the PM&DC, National Bio-ethics Committee and International organisations’ by private dental practices of Lahore City. Study Design: A cross-sectional study was conducted. Place and Duration of Study: All 38 private dental practices in randomly selected union councils of Lahore city were assessed for ethical omissions in their dental practices from to June 2019 - January 2020. Material and Methods: A pre-validated, reliable, pilot tested questionnaire was used to assess omissions in ethical and professional dental practices by private dental clinics in Lahore city in light of the standards, rules and regulations set by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PM&DC), the National Bioethics Committee (NBC) Pakistan and International Organisations. Ethics approval for the study was taken from University of Lahore Ethical Review Committee. Results: It was observed that 97.37% of private randomly selected dental clinics in Lahore city had omissions in the rules set by PM&DC and NBC. An overall 89.47% and 86.84% of private dental clinics had large and coloured sign boards respectively, while 52.63% had attractive pictures on their sign boards. A total of 13.16% of the dental practitioners of these clinics had mentioned additional qualifications apart from their academic qualifications and 26.32% of the dentists had additional captions on their sign board. Conclusion: This paper enumerates the background on the ethical rules of dental practice put forth by the PMDC and the practical implications of these standards particularly with regards to private dental practices in Pakistan. A need to help private dental clinical practices to understand the importance and implications of these standards, facilitation in adaptation and adherence to international gold standards of ethical and professional dental practice according to the need of the time was felt.

research from:

• Foundation University College of Dentistry

Year:

2020

Type of Publication:

Article

Journal:

EC Dental Science

Volume:

19

Number:

10

Pages:

-

Month:

9