Background:

Antibiotic consumption has become a public health problem. Dentists prescribe approximately 10% of the antibiotics. Some countries have identified clinical practices related to their prescription through self-report questionnaires. In Chile, there is no information regarding the prescription of antibiotics by dentists.

Aim:

Design and validate an instrument that allows for collecting information about antibiotic prescription by dentists in Chile.

Method:

An investigation was designed in two stages: 1) Creation of a self-report questionnaire as an information-gathering instrument. 2) A pilot study of the questionnaire to perform a descriptive analysis of prescription habits.

Results:

A questionnaire of 88 questions was created, organized mainly in matrices. The Content Validity Index was 0.88. During the pilot, 418 responses were analyzed. 51.67% of the dentists were from the Metropolitan Region, 43% had more than ten years of experience, 50% declared having postgraduate studies, 81% indicated that they prescribed antibiotics to between 1% and 25% of their patients in one month of work. Amoxicillin is the most prescribed antibiotic.

Conclusion:

The instrument designed was validated to evaluate the antibiotic prescription habits by dentists in Chile.

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