Introduction:

The management of ionizing radiation in dentistry without optimal and updated knowledge in radiological protection, may increase the risk of adverse effects of radiation to patients and occupationally exposed personnel (OEP). While there is research on knowledge in radiation protection in dentistry (RPD), articles evaluating the results of the investigations on this topic were not found. The purpose of the present narrative review was to evaluate the knowledge in RPD reported in research in the literature.

Materials and methods:

PubMed, Web of Knowledge and Scopus databases were used in the main search. The MeSH terms Radiation Protection, Knowledge, Awareness and Dentist were used in combination with the Boolean operators AND and OR. The search strategy was adapted for each database. In the complementary search, the reference lists of the articles included in the main search were used.

Results:

Mostly a medium-low level of knowledge in RPD was found regarding radiation protection of patients (63.7%), radiation protection of OEP (71.4%), adverse effects of radiation (81.8%) and technical specifications of radiographic equipment (83.3%). Mostly a low level of knowledge was found regarding radiation protection regulations (66.7%).

Conclusions:

The lack of knowledge in RPD may lead to acting in an insecure way, and patients may be receiving higher radiation doses than required. Moreover, OEP may receive higher doses of radiation than permitted. It is necessary to know the RPD measures to minimize the biological risk of exposure to X-rays.

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