Attitudes of dentists, working in Riyadh, toward people with a sensory impairment

ABSTRACT This study was conducted to determine the attitudes of dentists, working in Riyadh, toward people with a sensory impairment (SI), according to the Scale of Attitude Towards Disabled Persons (SADP). The SADP scale was modified to focus solely upon sensory impairment. The modified scale was pre‐tested and then incorporated into a self‐administered questionnaire. This was then administered to 600 dentists (response rate, 73.7%) working in the city of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The modified scale showed itself to be reliable, with a Chronbach's coefficient α 0.616 and four‐factor analysis, which accounted for 38.5% of the variance. Ninety‐four percent of the dentists were generally positive toward SI in the society. There were, however, significant variations in attitudes, with a more positive score for dentists who had worked for 30 years or more (p± 0.005), were specialists (p < 0.005), received little or no undergraduate training in this subject (p < 0.05), and who received their undergraduate training in Europe/North America (p < 0.001). However, in a stepwise regression model, all these variables were significant except for the years of practice. The modified SADP showed dentists, working in Saudi Arabia, having a positive attitude toward people with SI.