Assessment of knowledge, attitude, and practices regarding oral and dental hygiene among dental outpatients in Central India: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background: Orodental diseases present a major public health problem. About 90% of schoolchildren worldwide and most adults have experienced caries, with the disease. Little is known about oral and dental health attitudes and behaviors and practices among people from developing countries and especially, in this part of our country. Aims: The present study was carried out with an aim to assess the knowledge attitude and practices in oral and dental hygiene in patients attending the dentistry outpatient department. Materials and Methods: This hospital-based cross-sectional study was conducted during 2019 among 426 patients visiting the outpatient department of dentistry. A pretested, predesigned, standardized questionnaire was used to collect data. Ethical approval was obtained from the Institutional Ethical Committee prior to the conduct of the study. Collected data were entered into the MS Excel spreadsheet and analysis was carried out using IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows at a 5% level of significance. Results: Only 18.3% of participants were aware that a minimum of two times per day brushing of teeth is essential and nearly one-third of subjects (32.4%) disagreed with the fact that dental problems can lead to other health problems/systemic illness. More than half of subjects (52.1%) were using self-medication (pain killer/clove/clove oil/) as a primary approach to dental problems and was significantly associated with age and gender education (P