Oral and dental care practices and attitude of pregnant women in lalitpur, Nepal

Abstract

Hormonal changes during pregnancy accelerate estrogen and progesterone which is the main reason for periodontal diseases among pregnant women. Lack of oral hygiene maintenance and decreased awareness of routine professional dental checkup further complicate the oral health problems during pregnancy. Oral health is often neglected during examination and counseling compared to other components during antenatal visit of pregnant women in Nepal. Thus, the aim of present study is to identify the practice and attitude regarding oral and dental hygiene maintenance among pregnant women of Lalitpur district in Nepal. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted from July 2019 to February 2020 among 114 pregnant women who attended the out patients department for antenatal checkup at Lubhu Primary Health Care Center and Imadol Health Post, Lalitpur, Nepal. By using a structured questionnaire, an interview was conducted for all the participants of the study and inferential statistics was used to analyze the data. The findings revealed that 68.4% of the pregnant women had moderate level of knowledge, 98.2% of the respondents had positive attitude and 92.1% of them had insufficient practice regarding oral hygiene maintenance during pregnancy. The study revealed that there was a significant association between education status of respondents (p=0.001) with the level of knowledge and level of practice (p=0.005). However, no significant association was found between selected socio-demographic variables with the level of attitude regarding maintaining oral hygiene during pregnancy i.e. age, gravida and education. The association between attitude and practice Pearsons’ Correlation(r) was found to be significant (r = 0.214, p=0.020). Although most of the pregnant women in this study exhibit reasonable positive attitude to oral health, it was not revealed in their practices. It is necessary to incorporate oral health as an integral component of routine antenatal checkup and oral health counseling is recommended during the visits.