ArticleBMC oral health2025
Evaluation of dentists' malpractice fears and defensive dentistry attitudes: a scale development.
Article in BMC oral health, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Title Medico-Legal Preparedness in Dental Education: Training Gaps, Defensive Practice and Curriculum Implications Among Romanian Dental Students and Dentists.Dentistry journal · 2026Article
- Defensive Medical Practice in Dentistry: A Dual-Perspective Cross-Sectional Analysis of Dentists and Patients in Romania.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Evaluation of malpractice fears and defensive approaches in orthodontists' clinical practice.European oral research · 2026Article
- Complaint trends of dental malpractice in Tehran, Iran: a retrospective study (2016-2022).The Saudi dental journal · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesTo develop and design the Defensive Dentistry Attitude Scale (DDAS) to evaluate the relationship between defensive dentistry and fear of malpractice among dentists in Türkiye.
methodsThe Defensive Dentistry Assessment Scale (DDAS) questions were determined based on expert opinions and a literature review. Based on these results, a questionnaire including the 13-item DDAS and the malpractice fear scale was sent to 3513 dentists in Türkiye by email between 3.11.2023 and 10.1.2024. A total of 369 dentists returned. The questionnaire consisted of 26 questions with two VAS scales related to the frequency of complications and detailed anamnesis. During the development of DDAS, the Content Validity Index (CVI), Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were utilized. The Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests were employed for group comparisons. In examining the relationships between variables, path analysis within the structural equation modeling (SEM) framework was conducted.
resultsThe DDAS developed in the study was a valid and reliable measure with two dimensions and eight items. DDAS (Median = 29) and malpractice fear scores (Median = 21) were high in dentists. Malpractice fear scores of dentists aged 29-35 years (Median = 21) were found to be statistically significantly higher than those of dentists aged 36 years and older (p < 0.05). The levels of malpractice fears (Median = 22) and defensive dentistry attitudes (Median = 31) of dentists with 6-10 years of experience were statistically significantly higher than those of dentists with 11 years of experience and over (respectively (Median = 20), (Median = 28), p < 0.05). A statistically significant and high-level positive correlation was found between dentists' fear of malpractice and their tendency to adopt defensive dentistry practices (β = 0.56, p < 0.001).
conclusionsAccording to the results of this study, the DDAS was found to be a valid and reliable measure of negative and positive defensive dentistry. Specifically, a significant and strong positive correlation was identified between dentists' fear of malpractice and their engagement in defensive dentistry practices. This finding indicates that the tendency to adopt defensive dental behaviors increases as malpractice fear increases.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.