Perception of oral and maxillofacial surgery specialty among physicians in Sokoto, Northwest Nigeria

Background: Oral and maxillofacial surgery (OMS) evolves from the anatomical region within the head and neck region. Contrary to common belief, its scope does not start and end with teeth. This study is to assess the awareness of physicians in Sokoto, Northwest Nigeria, about the scope of practice of OMS. Materials and Methods: This is a prospective cross-sectional study carried out during annual general meeting of the Nigerian Medical Association in Sokoto. This is the largest gathering of physicians in the state. Data were stored and analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows version 20 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) and results presented in simple descriptive statistics and frequencies only. Results: One hundred and twenty-five questionnaires of the 150 distributed were returned and analyzed with a response rate of 83.3%. The analysis showed that there is high awareness of the respondents about the scope of oral and maxillofacial surgeons (OMFS) in facial bone fracture, jaw deformities, orofacial tumors, and temporomandibular joint ankylosis (81.0%, 88.1%, 88.1%, and 82.5%) respectively. There is, however, low awareness about its scope in sinus problems, cleft lip and palate, and esthetic facial surgery (9.5%, 12.7%, and 14.3%) respectively. Conclusion: The awareness of the scope of OMS practices needs to be increased among physicians, especially in cleft lip and palate, sinus problems, and esthetic facial surgeries. It is imperative as OMFS specialty to raise awareness of our specialty among physicians.