Assessment of Awareness on Drug Delivery System among Oral Healthcare Professionals: A Cross-sectional Study

Introduction: The technique or approach used to provide pharmaceutical drugs to achieve a therapeutic effect in people or animals is known as drug delivery. Local anaesthetics, Non Steroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs), and antibiotics are the most generally recommended medicines in dentistry. Dentists must be upto date on dosage formulations and various drug delivery methods.

Aim: To evaluate the knowledge about the Drug Delivery System (DDS) among oral healthcare professionals.

Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional questionnaire survey was conducted on 75 dental students and oral healthcare professionals of both genders, in population, Mysore, India. A questionnaire consisting of 12 dichotomous ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ questions were used in the study. The study population was obtained by convenient random sampling. The questionnaire was created and verified by healthcare professionals with extensive teaching and clinical experience. The responses received during the period from August 2022 to September 2022 were subjected to statistical analysis. The study was analysed by descriptive statistics such as frequency and percentage.

Results: All the 75 participants responded to the questionnaire and the response rate was 100%. The mean age of the participants in the present study was 22±2.3 years. A 92.00% (n=69) participants knew about various drug interactions. The participants had less knowledge about recent nano-based drug delivery. Only 42.66% (n=32) were acquainted with microneedle based transdermal delivery system, 33.33% (n=25) about nanocrystals and 21.33% (n=16) about 3D printing technology in DDS. A 97.33% (n=73) of the participated subjects thought that selection of appropriate DDS plays a role in its therapeutic efficacy.

Conclusion: The recent advances in drug delivery methods are of little interest among the participants in the present study. Participants in our survey demonstrated a lack of basic and fundamental understanding of nanotechnologies, highlighting the critical need for increased awareness. This article has highlighted the importance of knowing various drug delivery methods and the current trends in approaches.