Oral Health Technology Adoption among Canadian Dentists

Introduction: There is a large gap between available new technologies and what patients are offered. An important reason for this gap is the unclear adoption process of new technologies. We designed this study to determine the variables that influence the adoption rate of oral health technologies amongst Canadian oral physicians.

Methods: We sent an anonymous survey questionnaire to all licensed Canadian oral physicians, both general practitioners and specialists, who were members of the Canadian Dental Association. The three-part questionnaire, accompanied by a postage prepaid envelope, was included with the April 2006 volume of the Journal of the Canadian Dental Association. No second mailing was performed. By October 2007, we received 1781 responses.

Results: Our data indicate that the numbers of years that oral physicians have been practicing, the country where they attended dental school, their specialty area, and whether they owned their practice or not, as well as the sources of information available to them about the new technology were significantly associated with adoption. Dentists (aged 30-39 and 40-49 yrs) were significantly more likely to adopt new technologies than their older counterparts (50+ yrs old) (OR 1.54, 95%CI 1.18-2.01; OR 1.43, 95%CI 1.13-1.8, respectively). Dentists who trained in countries other than Canada and the US were less likely to adopt new technologies (OR 0.66, 95%CI 0.43-0.99). Dentists who owned their practices were more likely to adopt new technologies than those who did not own their practices (OR 1.3, 95%CI 1.03-1.65). Periodontists were the only specialists who adopted new technologies at significantly higher rates than general practitioners (OR 2.77, 95% CI 1.14-7.40).

Conclusions: This study provides evidence that the rate of adoption of new oral health technologies among Canadian dentists depends mainly on age, practice ownership, specialties, the country of training, and sources of information.