Abstract
Background: Oral health is a significant attribute of general health. Dental and medical students are expected to
have good oral health care behaviors, as they are meant to evoke the same in their patients. Thus, it is necessary to
assess their oral health care attitudes. The present study aims to compare the attitudes towards oral health care
among dental and medical students.
Methodology: A cross sectional was conducted by utilizing HU-DBI questionnaire. Out of the total 200 students
selected, 132 were medical and 68 were dental students of a private medical and dental collegeof Karachi selected
conveniently in the study after taking oral consent individually. The students suffering from depression or stress
apparently were excluded. The statistical analysis of collected data was conducted with the help of SPSS v.17. The
descriptive analysis was performed followed by inferential statistics.
Results: The mean value for students was 19.77 ± 1.22 years with 114 (57%) females and 86 (43%) males. A
significant difference was found between dental and medical students for oral health behaviors such as worrying
about teeth color, worrying about gums color, cleaning teeth without toothpaste, worrying about bad breath, use
of dye to see teeth cleanliness, use of toothbrush with hard bristles, use of hard strokes, and taking long time to
brush teeth.
Conclusion: It can be concluded on the basis of results that dental students, have better dental health practices
as compared to medical students. It is recommended that the oral health care practices should be further
emphasized in the curriculum of both the dental and medical students from the beginning as good oral hygiene
has good impact on the self confidence and overall healthcare.
Dr. Muhammad Adnan Kanpurwala, Uzma Zareef, Imran Bakar, Samia Khanam, Arif Ali, Shamsul ArfinQasmi. (2017) Variation in Attitude towards Oral Healthcare Among Undergraduate Students of a Private Medical & Dental College of Karachi, International Journal of Pathology, Vol-15, Issue 4.
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