Perception of Role of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Among Healthcare Professionals

Introduction: Oral and maxillofacial surgery (OMFS) is one of the oldest dental specialties. When compared to other surgical specialties, it is less popular among the healthcare professionals. Methods and materials: A questionnaire survey was conducted among 480 healthcare Professionals in Manipur, under four categories – dental students and practitioners, medical students and practitioners. Each group contains 120 participants and they were asked to select appropriate answers for 16 questions. 38 participants don't respond to the questionnaire which gives a total number of 442 participants. Data analysis is done using SPSS software. Results:Analysis of the data shows that 74.4% of participants were aware of various specialties of dentistry and 72.6% of them know about OMFS. For the nine clinical scenario based questions, almost all of them had opted OMFS for third molar removal, fractures of maxillofacial region and oral cancer. But most of them were unaware of the role of OMFS in cosmetic surgeries. Conclusion: Even though OMFS is a vast specialty, most of the healthcare professionals are unaware of its scope