EXPLORING THE KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDES OF DENTAL STUDENTS AND PROFESSIONALS TOWARDS SALIVA AS A DIAGNOSTIC TOOL – A QUESTIONNAIRE STUDY

Aim: To assess the knowledge and attitudes of Dental Students and Professionals towards Saliva as a Diagnostic
Tool – A questionnaire study.
Background: Early disease detection is essential for preventing complications that could adversely affect a patient’s
quality of life. Over the years, molecular diagnostics have used biofluids like blood, cerebrospinal fluid and urine to
detect the biomarkers for disease diagnosis. Saliva provides many advantages like non-invasive and easy collection,
untrained medical staff, multiple sample collection, minimal cross contamination, commercially available screening
assays etc.
Settings and Design: A cross-sectional questionnaire study was conducted among dental students and professionals.
Materials And Methods: 21 multiple choice questionnaire was prepared and circulated among peers for validation.
An online survey was created using google forms and distributed among dental students and professionals. Data was
tabulated in Excel spreadsheets. Imported to SPSS software version 2.0 and statistical analysis were performed.
Frequency, percentage, chi square test and Karl Pearson’s correlation coefficient was performed.
Conclusion: While many people are aware of saliva-based diagnostics, their views on how effective, accurate, and
reliable they are vary widely.