Introduction: Diabetes Mellitus is a public health problem that has a deleterious impact not only on the oral cavity but also compromises the general health of the patient. For oral health professionals, screening of this disease is of utmost importance, in order to manage this disease.

Objectives: This study aims to evaluate the attitude and knowledge of Pakistani dentists’ regarding diabetes mellitus and to assess barriers faced whilst carrying type 2 DM screening in the dental setting.

Methods: This cross-sectional study comprised of 385 participants from private and public dental practices in Karachi. The pre-validated questionnaire was used for collecting data online which was distributed via Google Forms. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS V.20. Frequency and percentages were calculated for categorical data while mean and standard deviation were calculated for the numerical data. The associations between different variables were assessed by the Chi-square test. A P-value of <0.05 was considered to be statistically significant.

Results: Among the study participants, 27.5% were males while 72.5% were females and the mean age was 38.3±5.2 years. The results showed that the public sector practitioners seemed to have more knowledge compared to the private sector. However, regarding attitude, most of the participants from the private sector agreed (p=0.001) on the cost-effectiveness of screening of DM. The results regarding risk factors involved in the development of DM showed uncertainty among all the study participants.

Conclusion: High proportion of dental practitioners have sufficient knowledge about the risk factors and the complications associated with DM. However, barriers remain to the implementation of chairside screening for DM in the dental setup.

Key Words: Knowledge, attitude, barriers, dental graduates, dental professionals’ oral health, diabetes mellitus diabetes type-II screening.