title: Advertising in dentistry.
abstract: Due to a rapid increase of unemployment among dentists in many countries, the interest in advertising as a means of stimulating the demand for dental care is increasing. In some countries (i.e. USA, Canada, Finland and Holland) campaigns have been organized and the results have been published. In order to give as complete a picture as possible of all promotional activities in the field of dentistry, the member organizations of the FDI have been asked to answer the following questions: (1) Are individual dentists in your country allowed to solicit new patients by means of advertisements? (2) Do you, as an organization, have guidelines for your members in this respect? (3) Have there been any joint promotional activities by dentists in your country aimed at increasing the demand for dental care? (a) If so, in what form (e.g. advertisements, television or radio commercials)? (b) How much money was invested in such activities? (c) What were the results achieved? The results are presented. The effectiveness of specific methods used in stimulating the demand for dental care are analysed. Moreover, a comparison is made between studies on the attitudes of dentists toward advertising in Holland and the United States.
mesh_terms: D000329:Advertising; D001290:Attitude; D003815:Dentists / Q000523:psychology; D005060:Europe; D006801:Humans; D009656:North America; D012953:Societies, Dental