Indian Journal of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology

Blood malignancies include three major types of leukemia, lymphoma, and plasma cell tumors. Our greatest concern about these patients is the risk of infection and bleeding during and after treatment, as well as concerns about knowledge, attitude and performance of general dentists in handling and managing the treatment of these children. Therefore, this study tends to assess knowledge, attitude and performance of general dentists in relation to children with leukemia and their related therapies in Ahwaz.

this cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out by a researcher-made questionnaire consisting of 4 parts: personal information, knowledge, attitude and performance in 2018. The questionnaires were submitted to 100 dentists. The collected data was analyzed by SPSS22 software.

In this study, 43 women and 57 men participated. Mean scores of knowledge were 3.70 ± 1.01 in women and 3.93 ± 1.05 in men. The mean scores of attitude were 12.87 ± 4.17 in women and 13.34 ± 3.53 in men. Mean scores of performance were 3.85 ± 1.00 for women and 3.86 ± 1.03 for men; none of the scores showed statistically significant difference.

This study showed that knowledge, attitude and performance of dentists is not optimal in relation to leukemia and the related treatments. Therefore, it is necessary to provide educational programs and give the necessary knowledge to students and dentists.