Naif A. Alrubaiq

Background. Several endodontic difficulty assessment forms are available to help dental students and general dentists estimate the difficulty of the case before initiating the endodontic treatment. Objectives. This study aimed to assess if the American Association of Endodontics (AAE) case difficulty assessment form affects the dental student’s perception of the difficulty encountered while performing root canal treatment (RCT). Materials and Methods. This was a cross‐sectional online survey. After obtaining IRB approval, an electronic questionnaire was sent to dental students enrolled in the 4th and 5th years at King Saud University (KSU) and King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences (KSAU‐HS), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The questionnaire was divided into informed consent, demographic data, the use of the AAE case assessment form, RCT steps, diagnosis, local anesthesia administration, tooth isolation, and endodontic procedure. Results. A total of 195 dental students participated in the study. There were 101 (52%) females, and 139 (71%) were from KSAU‐HS. A positive association was found between students who used the AAE assessment form and who did not with their ability to reach the correct diagnosis (p = 0.005), tooth isolation (p = 0.03), and endodontic procedure difficulty score (p = 0.018). Conclusion. The use of the AAE form by dental students enabled them to differentiate between complicated and uncomplicated cases, thus lowering the difficulty encountered during RCT.

Method was applied to the meta-data retrieved from the Web of Science on December 7, 2022. The word Endodonti* was written in the main search bar, and from the year’s filter, selected starting year 2010 to the date of data collection. In the first phase, to access the global publication growth of endodontics, no country/region filter was used. After getting the summary of the global intellectual landscape, we selected Saudi Arabia from the country/region filter to analyze certain characteristics of endodontics documents. Periodical growth, accessibility modes, collaboration patterns, influential institutions, frequently used sources, international research collaboration, and most-cited documents were analyzed by using Microsoft Excel (v.16) and SPSS (v.20). The authors affiliated with Brazil contributed the highest number of documents and Saudi Arabia stood in the eighth rank in endodontics research. The growing tendency was observed in Saudi Arabia from 1.29% in 2010 to 7.60% in 2022 from a global perspective. The quality of nonopen-accessed documents was higher than open-accessed as per citation impact, similarly, the documents written on international collaboration got a higher ratio of citations compared with national collaboration. King Saud University was found the most prolific institution and the Journal of Endodontics was the most preferred source of publications. The maximum research collaboration at the international level was performed with the authors of the United States. Fifteen most-cited papers obtained 21.42% of the citations. The findings show that endodontics research in Saudi Arabia has increased significantly over the years. The research collaboration at the national level has increased, which shows that teams of national researchers in endodontics have been prepared and conducting valuable research in a national context....