A Questionnaire Survey on Current Endodontic Practice of Dental Practitioners in Turkey

Background and Aims: The aims of this article were to assess the current endodontic practice in Turkey and to find out the opinions of practitioners on their level of practice and training needs. Subjects and Methods: A questionnaire dealing with current endodontic practice was prepared. A total of 650 practitioners from Turkey were randomly chosen and the questionnaires were sent to their e-mail adresses. All responses were gathered in Excel and analyzed using the software SPSS. Results: A total of 204 dentists returned the questionnaires, giving a response rate of 31.3%. More than 70% of the respondents stated that they never used rubber dam during endodontic treatment, 60.3% indicated that they routinely took preoperative radiographs. The most commonly chosen technique for working length estimation was taking radiographs (78%). 76% of the respondents used rotary NiTi instruments. Nearly 64% of them used rotary NiTi instruments more than 5 times per week and 30.5% used them until distortion occurred. Respondents commonly applied a combination of techniques (57.2%) or crown down (28.3%). Nearly 50% of the respondents used rotary NiTi instruments for retreatment and almost 90% considered postgraduate endodontic training was necessary. Conclusions: This study demonstrates that the majority of respondents adopted the rotary NiTi instruments and techniques into endodontic practice. On the other hand, some other procedures such as rubber-dam usage for isolation or electronic apex locator application in working length determination are not well incorporated. The need of endodontic training after graduation is seemed to be a common opinion among practitioners.