title: Attitude of Indian dental professionals toward scientific publications: A questionnaire based study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Due to competitiveness and academic benefits, most dental professionals feel an urgent need to increase their publications. Hence, we explored the attitude of students and faculty members toward scientific publications through a questionnaire.
  
  
  METHODS
  A questionnaire consisting of 13 questions was sent by e-mails and posting the printed copies to dental postgraduate (PG) students (second and third year) and faculty members (n = 500 each). The returned completed questionnaires were analyzed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  About 37% of dental PG faculty and 35.6% PG students responded to the questionnaire, with overall response of 72.6%. Among the PG faculty, professors (P) had more scientific publications, followed by senior lecturers (SL) and readers (R). The publications as first or corresponding author were less among both faculty and PG students while co-authorship was more among PG students compared to faculty members. Awareness about the term "plagiarism" was overall high and relatively highest among R, followed by SL, P and PG students. The percentage of publications in fee charging journals was more among PG students than faculty members and self-funding for publication was observed in 86.4% of PG students and 94-100% among faculty members.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  About 72.6% of dental professionals were involved in publishing of their research work and the number of publications increased steadily with an increase in their academic experience. All the dental professionals concurred publications as the criteria for academic excellence.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral Medicine and Radiology, Surendera Dental College and Research Institute, Sriganganagar, Rajasthan, India.
authors.forename: Pradhuman
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Verma
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral Medicine and Radiology, Surendera Dental College and Research Institute, Sriganganagar, Rajasthan, India.
authors.forename: Suresh K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Sachdeva
authors.affiliation: Department of Pedodontics and Preventive Dentistry, Surendera Dental College and Research Institute, Sriganganagar, Rajasthan, India.
authors.forename: Kanika Gupta
authors.initials: KG
authors.lastname: Verma
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral Medicine and Radiology, Surendera Dental College and Research Institute, Sriganganagar, Rajasthan, India.
authors.forename: Rameen
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Khosa
authors.affiliation: Department of Periodontics, JSS Dental College, Mysore, Karnataka, India.
authors.forename: Suman
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Basavraju
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral Medicine and Radiology, Maharana Pratap College of Dentistry and Research Centre, Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, India.
authors.forename: Sanjay
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dutta
keywords: Attitude; dental professionals; plagiarism; questionnaires