Perception of general practitioners towards the role of dentists in obstructive sleep apnea [Percezione dei medici di medicina generale verso il ruolo degli odontoiatri nell’apnea ostruttiva del sonno]

OBJECTIVES The aim of the study was to as-sess the awareness and attitudes of general practitioners (GPs) about the role of dental practitioners in the management of ob-structive sleep apnea (OSAS). MATERIALS AND METHODS Data were collected through Google Forms on a sample of GPs operat-ing in: Piedmont, Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna. Collection was done anonymously without identify-ing data so as to ensure privacy. The questionnaire included three sections: demographic data of physicians, knowledge about OSAS and the role of dentists (14 questions), and knowledge about the existence of the OSAS PDTA (diagnostic therapeutic care plan) and specialized centers in the management of OSAS patients (4 questions). Microsoft Excel was used to eval-uate the results by using descrip-tive statistics, as the different per-centages obtained were analysed by counting the number of marked answers per question against the total sample. Three “categories of knowledge” were then created to classify the per-centages recorded: poor, good and excellent, corresponding to specific ranges of established percentages. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS The preparation of the GPs was found to be rather uneven but still good in terms of knowledge on OSAS, while unfortunately on the figure of the dental surgeon, de-spite being rightly recognized as a specialist who can participate in the management of OSAS pa-tients, the knowledge was found to be insufficient, and therefore special courses on the subject were recommended. On mandibular advancement de-vice (MAD), a good general knowledge base was found, but with more specific questions on the success rates of this therapy, inadequate knowledge of the physicians participating in the study emerged. A low number (only 30 percent) of GPs were found to be aware of the exis-tence of the OSAS PDTA, and a marginal role of National Health Service in communicating infor-mation regarding referral centers for the management of OSAS pa-tients. For this reason, it is recommend-ed that, in addition to more train-ing of physicians on these issues, National Health Service should al-so be more involved in the infor-mation process of GPs in their ter-ritories. In any case, it is necessary to con-tinue the study on a larger sample of physicians so that it is more representative of the category of GPs. CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE From the data analysis, we will thus be able to identify the possi-ble need to improve the training of GPs by raising their awareness of this issue, leading to a more tar-geted and accurate management of patients suffering from OSAS, trying to highlight the possibility of making use of the dentist as a physician who can manage such patients.