A Survey on dental personnel’s perceptions of digital dentistry and dental digital equipment

Kim, Jae-Hoon; Lee, Hyeon-Jong; Go, Seung-Man; Kim, Hyeon-Cheol

doi:2021.59.5.262

J Korean Dent Assoc > Volume 59(5); 2021 > Article

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Journal of Korean Dental Association 2021;59(5):262-274.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22974/jkda.2021.59.5.001 Published online April 30, 2021.

디지털 치의학과 치과용 디지털 장비에 대한 치과 분야 종사자들의 인식 조사

김재훈¹

, 이현종²

, 고승만³

, 김현철⁴

^¹부산대학교 치의학전문대학원 치의학교육학교실, 치의학연구소
^²부산대학교 치의학전문대학원 치과보철학교실, 치의학연구소
^³마중물 리서치(주)
^⁴부산대학교 치의학전문대학원 치과보존학교실, 치의학연구소

A Survey on dental personnel’s perceptions of digital dentistry and dental digital equipment

Jae-Hoon Kim¹

, Hyeon-Jong Lee²

, Seung-Man Go³

, Hyeon-Cheol Kim⁴

¹Department of Dental Education, School of Dentistry, Pusan National University, Dental Research Institute
²Department of Prosthodontics, School of Dentistry, Pusan National University, Dental Research Institute
³Majungmul Research Co.
⁴Department of Conservative Dentistry, School of Dentistry, Pusan National University, Dental Research Institute

Correspondence: Hyeon-Cheol Kim
Email: golddent@pusan.ac.kr

Received: 23 December 2020 • Revised: 2 February 2021 • Accepted: 15 February 2021

Abstract

The purpose of this survey was to assess the perceptions of dental personnel concerning digital dentistry and dental digital equipment. The survey was conducted from July to August 2019 in Busan and Gyeongnam area. Three sets of questionnaires were designed to target dental professionals and staff, dental industry personnel, and dental students. The questionnaires were composed of best-choice questions, multiple-choice questions, and questions with the five-point Likert scale. Frequency analysis, descriptive statistics, and one-way ANOVA were used for data analysis. A total of 141 dental personnel participated in the survey: 92 dental professionals and staff, 29 dental industry personnel, and 20 dental students. The time saving was the most frequent response to the benefits of digital dentistry in all job categories. The main barrier to dental digital equipment introduction was the high cost. Although the evaluation of the economic efficiency of dental digital equipment was not positive, sixty-seven percent of dental professionals and staff having no digital equipment responded that they were considering purchasing dental digital equipment. They were most interested in intra-oral scanners. In conclusion, dental personnel were positively aware of the utility of dental digital equipment and interested in introducing new equipment. How-ever, high initial costs and uncertain economic efficiency were found to be the main barriers to using dental digital equipment.

Key Words: Digital Dentistry; Digital workflow; CAD/CAM; Intra-oral scanner