Dental chair: the machine dentists work most upon, know little about

Objectives: Oral health is a very important component of general health. It is clear that proper functioning of dental chair is mandatory to deliver oral health care in dental office. Most dentists experienced problems with dental chair with varying frequency and they may not always have spare dental chair in their clinics. This definitely hampers the oral health care delivery. Most of the time, the dental chairs have minor problems that can be easily corrected by anyone with some technical understanding. Methods: A study was conducted to know the extent of such problems in dental offices of Varanasi (India) and to suggest any possible solution. The response of 300 dentists of Varanasi was collected in form of a questionnaire, amongst which 270 were included in the study. The data collected were statistically analyzed. Results: It was found that most dentists face technical problems with their dental chairs (p=0.014) and are not satisfied with dental chair technician services and felt that they were overcharged (p=0.000). Conclusion: It is suggested that dental chair technical training should be included in dental graduate’s curriculum which will help the new generation dentist to serve the community better.