This study was undertaken in Andhra Pradesh, India, to assess how dental practitioners understand and implement the 2014 Dental Code of Ethics regulations and the 2019 Consumer Protection Act, highlighting the necessity for dentists to be acquainted with the ethical and legal standards that govern their profession. To investigate the knowledge and practice of ethical and legal standards among dentists, a cross-sectional survey was conducted involving 384 dental professionals in Andhra Pradesh, India. Participants completed a 25-question survey focused on the Dental Code of Ethics regulations and the Consumer Protection Act, and the resulting data were processed and analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 25.0.”In this study, only 53 dental practitioners (13.8%) were aware of the 2014 revision of the Dental Code of Ethics. Nearly half of the participants (190, 49.5%) correctly identified the mandatory duration for retaining patient records. A large proportion of dentists, 278 (72.4%), reported receiving gifts or cash commissions from laboratories, radiologists, or pharmacists, and 306 (79.7%) employed dental technicians who were not officially registered. Furthermore, 297 practitioners (77.3%) acknowledged dispensing or selling medications directly to patients in their clinics. Awareness of the updated Consumer Protection Act of 2019 was lacking in 194 participants (50.5%).This study shows that dentists lack sufficient familiarity with the 2014 Dentists (Code of Ethics) Regulations and the 2019 Consumer Protection Act. It stresses the importance of introducing dedicated training initiatives and updating dental education to better incorporate ethical and legal principles in everyday clinical practice.
