Research Article Demographics, Practising Arrangements, and Standards: Survey among New Zealand Dentists RobertJamesLee,JithendraRatnayake ,ArthiVeerasamy,CarolinaLoch,PeterCathro, and Paul A. Brunton University of Otago, Faculty of Dentistry, 310 Great King Street, Dunedin 9016, New Zealand Correspondence should be addressed to Jithendra Ratnayake; jithendra.ratnayake@otago.ac.nz Received 12 September 2018; Revised 14 October 2018; Accepted 29 October 2018; Published 18 November 2018 Academic Editor: Ali I. Abdalla Copyright © 2018 Robert James Lee et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background. To determine the demographic profile and practising arrangements of general dentists in New Zealand. Methods. A questionnaire comprising 19 sections with 125 questions was distributed via mail to 351 general dentists in New Zealand who were selected, at random, from the Dental Council of New Zealand’s 2016 register. Results. Two hundred and four questionnaires were returned, of which 188 were usable giving a response rate of 53.5%. e majority of the respondents (63.5%)weremaleandpracticeprincipals(56.8%).Fifty-ninepercentofthepracticeswerelocatedincityortowncentreswith a wide geographic distribution. Sole practitioners accounted for 24.1% of respondents, with the mean number of dentists per practice being 3.2. e majority of respondents (71.6%) attended five or more continuing professional development courses in the past year. Ninety-one percent of respondents used a computerized management system, and 95.3% used the Internet. e use of nickel-titanium endodontic files (83.9%) and digital imaging (82.2%) was the most frequently cited clinical innovations. Articaine was the most popular local anaesthetic of choice. Conclusions. Dentistry is an ever-changing profession, with evidence that NZ dentists continue to develop, learn, and embrace advancements in technologies to supply high-quality evidence-based treatment. 1. Introduction Patterns of dental disease have changed dramatically over the past quarter century. Public awareness of the benefits of good oral health has increased, and the impact of ad- vances in personal and public prevention strategies, in- cluding fluoride toothpaste and fluoridated water supplies, is now being realised. Although the amount of simple treatment provided is declining, the amount of complex treatment required and provided is correspondingly in- creasing [1]. With the increase in average life expectancy, adults are retaining more of their natural dentition for longer, guiding the strategic vision for oral health to be focused on “good oral health, for all, for life” [2, 3]. e changing oral health needs of the population highlight the task at hand for the dental profession in treating dental disease and maintaining oral health and quality of life for patients. In addition, patients now have a greater aware- ness of dental aesthetics and expect to remain dentate throughout life. Dentistry is a commercialised profession, which is re- flected in a number of ways such as the growing number of postgraduate courses, business aspects of dentistry, and marketing of alternative forms of treatment and materials. With the proliferation of digital technology over the past ten years, a new “communication culture” has also emerged. Due to the attractiveness and popularity of social media, many dental schools also use social media to promote their courses and communicate with their students [4]. In ad- dition, social media have been used to promote new dental technologies and advertise private dental practices, as well as to share dental research [5]. e degree to which social media is used by general dentists is an area that has to date been poorly investigated. Hindawi International Journal of Dentistry Volume 2018, Article ID 7675917, 8 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/7675917