DESIGN: General dental practitioners and specialists in the UAE were invited to participate in an online questionnaire survey which included questions on socio-demographics, practitioner's antibiotic prescribing preferences for various pulpal and periapical diseases, and their choice, in terms of the type, dose and duration of the antibiotic. The link to the survey questionnaire was sent to 250 invited dentists. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics and chi-square tests for independence and level of significance was set at 0.05.

RESULTS: A total of 174 respondents participated in the survey (response rate = 70%). The respondents who prescribed antibiotics at least once a month were 38.5% while 17.2% did so, more than three times a week; amoxicillin 500 mg was the antibiotic of choice for patients not allergic to penicillin (43.7%), and in cases of penicillin allergies, erythromycin 500 mg (21.3%). There was a significant difference in the antibiotic prescribing practices of GDPs compared to endodontists and other specialties especially in clinical cases such as acute apical abscesses with swelling and moderate to severe pre-operative symptoms and retreatment of endodontic cases (p<0.05). Approximately, three quarters of the respondents (78.7%) did not prescribe a loading dose when prescribing antibiotics. About 15% respondents prescribed antibiotics to their patients if they were not accessible to patients due to a holiday/weekend.