Ten-year follow-up on adoption of endodontic technology and clinical guidelines amongst Danish general dental practitioners

Objective: The aim of this study was to re-assess the adoption of certain endodontic technology and central treatment principles of root canal treatments as advocated by guidelines presented by the European Society of Endodontology. Material and methods: The questionnaire included the same questions in 2003 and 2013. The general dental practitioners (GDPs) anonymously reported how frequent ('often', 'occasionally', and 'never') they used certain endodontic technology and adhered to central treatment principles. The statistical analyses were performed using Chi-squared test and Goodman-Kruskal's gamma-coefficient as an association measure. Results: The overall response rate of the 2013 group was 46.5% (n = 531). The frequencies of GDPs reporting often use of rubber dam, apex locator and rotary NiTi instruments were significantly higher (p < .0001) than in 2003, as well as reporting the use of composite resin for coronal sealing (p < .019). Adoption was significantly influenced by the factors gender (p = .601) and time since graduation (p = .361), and the cluster analyses revealed the neglected use of rubber dam to be associated with no established postoperative recall system. Conclusions: After 10 years, there was a higher frequency of GDPs who had adopted certain endodontic technologies. However, progress towards high-quality root canal treatment might be obstructed as the majority of GDPs avoids consistent use of rubber dam, and routinely neglects recalls for postoperative controls of their endodontic treatments.