Motivating Factors for Seeking Oral Health Care at a Teaching Dental Hospital in South India: A Cross-sectional Study

Abstract

General health cannot be attained or maintained without oral health. The mouth is regarded as a mirror and the gateway to health.1,2 The dental health of the general population in developed countries has improved over the past four decades, but people from developing countries continue to have high levels of dental disease. In developing countries like India, evidence repeatedly shows suboptimal utilization of dental services.3 Preventive dental visits help in the early detection and treatment of oral diseases.4 But the provision of preventive dental care for adults depends on the individual patient’s initiatives in utilizing dental care. Utilization is the actual attendance by the members of the public at health care facilities to receive care.5,6 Utilization of dental services is influenced by a complex set of factors.7,8 Behavioral, sociodemographic, and culturally related factors contribute to people’s decision in choosing dental health care providers as well as utilization of dental services. In order to improve oral health outcomes, an adequate knowledge of the individuals’ use of health services and the factors predictive of this behavior is essential. The socio-demographic background of an individual is an important variable predictive of dental services use.7 There are 301 dental colleges in India, which exceeds the number of dental institutions in the United States, Brazil, and the whole of Europe. It is apparent that there is unequal distribution of dental colleges in India across its states, but this could be anticipated in a vast country like India with its huge cultural and economic diversity. The residual state of Andhra Pradesh, a south Indian state after bifurcation, has 13 dental institutions with the population of the state being near to 4.9 crores according to the 2011 census. There is unequal distribution of dental colleges across the 13 administrative areas (districts) of the state with no dental colleges in Vizianagaram, Prakasam, and Ananthapur districts. Guntur district is 1 of the 13 districts of Andhra Pradesh located along the east coast of the Bay of Bengal, bearing a population of 4,889,230 according to the 2011 census with an area spreading over 11,391 km.9 There is only one teaching-based dental institution available for the dental care of population in Guntur 1Postgraduate Student, 2Professor and Head, 3-5Reader 6Senior Lecturer 1-6Department of Public Health Dentistry, Sibar Institute of Dental Sciences, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, India