Continuing education in oral cancer prevention for dentists in Spain.

Continuing education (CE) can have a large impact on dentists' oral cancer attitudes, knowledge, and behavior. Reading scientific journals is a key component of CE. The objective of this study was to assess preventive and clinical attitudes of the participants in an educational intervention on oral cancer in Spain based on scientific journals. Members of the Spanish Board of Dentists and Stomatologists participated in an online, cross-sectional study, using an anonymous, self-administered questionnaire. There were 791 general dental practitioners (GDPs) invited to participate in the study. The large majority reported that they deliver tobacco-cessation counseling (93.6 percent) as well as advice on alcohol consumption (66.6 percent), but advice on vegetable intake was less frequently provided (42.4 percent). Alcohol intake advice, routine mucosa exploration, and biopsy performance on lesions suspicious of malignancy are preventive attitudes related to training. Compared with those who did not benefit from CE courses or did so only once, the GDPs who took four or more CE courses showed a doubling in the odds of giving alcohol advice to their patients and a tenfold increased odds of performing mucosa check on a routine basis; they were 3.5 times as likely to take biopsies of suspicious lesions. A longer experience as a GDP did not increase the probability of adopting preventive attitudes. In addition to presenting the results of this study, the article also discusses the general usefulness of other preventive measures in oral cancer.