ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE Pediatrician’s View on Pediatric Dental Needs: Bridging the Gap Gunmeen Sadana 1 , Avi Singh 2 , Savneet Ratan 3 , Gorika Dogra 4 A BSTRACT Background: Although repeated eforts are being made from time to time to enhance the knowledge of pediatricians regarding the oral health of children, yet there is a huge gap to bridge. This study is yet another efort to fnd the loopholes where improvements can be made, as establishing a good rapport and communication between both the fraternities is the need of the hour to decrease the load of a major public health problem, i.e., dental caries in children. Aim: This study was aimed to appraise pediatrician’s knowledge and awareness toward oral health and treatment needs. Materials and methods: Pediatricians in the Amritsar district were requested to fll up the questionnaire concerning their knowledge level and approach toward pediatric dentistry. Results: Although 80% of pediatricians was aware about dental caries, only 60% of the pediatricians surveyed had ample knowledge of the importance of various aspects of pediatric dentistry. Conclusion: Every pediatrician should be associated with a pediatric dentist to minimize the load of oral diseases and brace the positive dental attitude in developing years of life. Keywords: Oral healthcare, Pediatric dentist, Pediatrician, Referral. AMEI’S Current Trends in Diagnosis & Treatment (2019): 10.5005/jp-journals-10055-0080 I NTRODUCTION The signifcance of dentistry through primary years of child’s life has been well appreciated. 1 The recommended guidelines by American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD) put more emphasis on early professional intervention and primary preventive strategies for oral health. 2 Comprehensive healthcare cannot be achieved unless dental care is a strong priority in all health service programs. 1 Thus, oral health counseling becomes important for the new mothers; and as they usually seek pediatrician’s guidance in securing their child’s normal growth and development, pediatricians are the frst ones who can provide information for improving oral healthcare to the young mothers. 3 It has been reported that 89% of children aged 1 year had an ofce-based physician visit, compared with only 1.5% who had a dental ofce visit. 2 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that caries is the most prevalent infectious disease 4 and more than 40% of children have caries by the time they reach kindergarten. Latino, American, Indian, and Alaska Natives are especially at high risk of developing early childhood caries (ECC) also called “baby bottle tooth decay”. 5 The ECC is a virulent form of caries, beginning soon after tooth eruption, developing on smooth surfaces, progressing rapidly and having a lasting detrimental impact on dentin. Caries in primary teeth can afect children’s growth, result in signifcant pain and potentially life-threatening infection, and diminish the overall quality of life. 6 Since medical healthcare professionals are far more likely to see new mothers and infants than are dentists, it is essential that they be aware of the infectious etiology and associated risk factors for ECC, so as to make appropriate decisions timely and refer the child to pediatric dentist for efective early intervention. 5 These early screenings present an opportunity to educate parents about the benefts of preventive rather than restorative care and may be more efective in reducing ECC than traditional infectious disease models. 7 So a key element of comprehensive care for children thus involves the coordination of services between medical and dental providers, so that the appropriate healthcare professionals can provide appropriate services at the appropriate ages. 8 The present study was performed in Amritsar district to assess and evaluate the knowledge, attitude, and awareness of the pediatricians regarding the preventive dental modalities and treatment needs of children. M ATERIALS AND M ETHODS A present survey was undertaken in Punjab state among 150 doctors having master’s degree or postgraduate diploma in pediatrics. 1,4 Department of Pediatric and Preventive Dentistry, Sri Guru Ram Das Institute of Dental Sciences and Research, Amritsar, Punjab, India 2 Government Medical College, Amritsar, Punjab, India 3 Sri Guru Ram Das Institute of Dental Sciences and Research, Amritsar, Punjab, India Corresponding Author: Gorika Dogra, Department of Pediatric and Preventive Dentistry, Sri Guru Ram Das Institute of Dental Sciences and Research, Amritsar, Punjab, India, Phone: +91 8360705812, e-mail: gorikadograbds@gmail.com How to cite this article: Sadana G, Singh A, Rattan S, et al. Pediatrician’s View on Pediatric Dental Needs: Bridging the Gap. AMEI’S Curr Trends Diagn Treat 2019;3(2):68–71. Source of support: Nil Confict of interest: None © The Author(s). 2019 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons. org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and non-commercial reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.