Oral Hygiene Awareness among Two Non Professional College Students in Chennai, India- A Pilot Study

Abstract

"Oral Health for Healthy life" the theme for World Health Day by WHO for 1998 (1).No one can be truly healthy unless he or she is free from the burden of oral and craniofacial diseases and conditions (2). Oral health diseases are detrimental to the quality of life during childhood through old age and can have an impact on self-esteem, eating ability, nutrition, and health. They are associated with considerable pain, anxiety, and impaired social functioning (3.4). Among the dental disease, dental caries and periodontal problem is of more prevalence and it is an important component of global disease burden. Dental disease preventions depend upon the involvement of community, professional and individual.

Oral health of an individual depends upon awareness and attitude .Attitudes naturally reflect their own experiences, cultural perceptions, familial beliefs, and other life situations and has a strong influence on oral health behaviour (5). Several recent studies concern the oral health attitudes and behaviours of young adults and the relation between their attitudes and behaviours and their dental or oral status, (6,7) Oliveira et al. report that children with inadequate oral health knowledge are twice as likely to have caries than children with adequate knowledge. Studies have shown that there is an association between increased knowledge and better oral health  (8,9).The objective of this study was to evaluate the oral health knowledge and oral health behaviour among the nonprofessional college students in Chennai with help of questionnaire adopted from Peterson et al. (18) and Stenberg et al.(19)