Knowledge, attitude and practices of dental professionals in Rwanda towards the benefits and applications of teledentistry
Open accessAbstract
Background: Currently, the use of teledentistry is still low in developing countries. In Rwanda, the state of teledentistry is undocumented. Without knowledge and positive attitude of dental practitioners towards teledentistry, it will not be easy to implement teledentistry innovations.Methods: To assess the knowledge, attitude and practices of dental professionals towards teledentistry, a cross-sectional study was conducted in Kigali-Rwanda on 103 dental professionals.Results: The majority of respondents had good knowledge and positive attitude (88%) towards the benefits and application of teledentistry. However, the practice of teledentistry being done by dental professionals is still at low level where only seven (6.8%) of dental professionals are using videoconference for health related purpose intercommunication. Also only 13 (12.6%) and eight (7.8%) were sharing digital x-ray and digital photographs as the reason for intercommunication respectively. The knowledge, attitude and daily internet access were significantly positively associated with practice (p <0.05). Also knowledge of dental professionals towards the benefits and application of teledentistry was significantly and positively associated with their attitude teledentistry (p<0.05).Conclusion: The results revealed that dental professionals are knowledgeable and have positive attitude towards teledentistry. Again, dental professionals overall believe that teledentistry is good and it has to be integrated into the current dental practice. However, the practice of teledentistry is still at low level in Rwanda compared to other advanced applications of teledentistry done in developed countries.Keywords: Teledentistry, attitude, knowledge, practice, dental professionals
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Issues regarding patients security, privacy and protection of medical data were further challenges to adoption of health technology.
“In addition, issues regarding patients security, privacy and protection of medical data were highlighted as further challenges (Isabalija et al., 2011; Murererehe et al., 2017) to the adoption of health technology.”
From Telemedicine use in Sub-Saharan Africa: Barriers and policy recommendations for Covid-19 and beyond (2021) · cites this paper as Murererehe et al., 2017
In “Perceived challenges to the use of Teledentistry,” 50.5% of respondents thought teledentistry could violate patient privacy, and 48.5% worried about data-entry mistakes. These findings support privacy as a perceived challenge, but the paper does not identify patient security or protection of medical data as separate adoption challenges; its findings concern teledentistry rather than health technology generally. (LLM, conf=0.86)
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- Authors
- Murererehe, J., Uwambaye, P., Isyagi, M., Nyandwi, T., & Njunwa, K.
- Affiliations
- University of Rwanda (RW)
- Venue
- Rwanda Journal
- Publisher
- African Journals Online (AJOL)
- Published
- 2017-05-24
- Volume
- 4
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 39
- ISSN
- 2305-2678 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2617123172
- Cited by
- 28
- References
- 14
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 2
- FWCI
- 0.64
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Locations
- Rwanda Journal (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Dentistry › General Dentistry › Dental Research and COVID-19
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Telemedicine and Telehealth Implementation
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Dental Education, Practice, Research
- Keywords
- teledentistry, dental professionals, knowledge, attitudes and practices, videoconferencing, digital radiography, digital photographs, internet access, Rwanda
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