Assessment of knowledge and practices of additive manufacturing in dentistry among university teaching faculty in Saudi Arabia

Background: In recent era, digitalization in the dental sciences has been observed in wide ranges. This cross-sectional study aimed to assess knowledge and practice of additive manufacturing (AM) in dentistry among university teaching faculty in Saudi Arabia. Methods: A questionnaire was prepared and validated to distribute to the different dental colleges in Saudi Arabia. The questionnaire was divided into three parts: demographic information, knowledge and practices of AM among the dental teaching faculty. After receiving all the responses, descriptive statistics were used for the frequency distribution of all the responses. Results: A total of 367 responses were received from the different faculty members. Most of the participants were male (67.30%), holding assistant professor (52.50%) positions in the field of prosthodontics (23.40%). In terms of knowledge, even though most of the participants were aware of AM (64.30%); however, do not understand the AM techniques (33.50). Moreover, 71.90% of the participants had no experience working with AM and only 13.60% of participants used AM in their respective dental colleges. Conclusion: AM techniques are not commonly used in the field of dentistry in Saudi Arabia; therefore, more platforms should have created to enhance the knowledge and practice of AM in the current population.