Study of pattern of common chief complaints in patients seeking dental care in private dental institution of Andhra Pradesh, India

Introduction: Provision of proper dental health care depends on many factors like health manpower, infrastructure and compliance from the patients. Among all these the demand for dental health care is usually represented by chief complaints (CCs) form the patient which makes the basic pillar for further evaluation and management. Aims and Objectives: To find out the pattern of chief complaints by the dental patients attending the private dental institution in Andhra Pradesh. Materials and method: A hospital based cross sectional study was conducted at G Pulla Reddy Dental College and Hospital, Kurnool Andhra Pradesh in the month of July 2017. Details regarding age, sex and chief complaints or the reason for visiting the hospital was collected. Results: A total of 1308 visited the hospital during the study period and all of them were included in the study. The demand for treatment was majorly from the 21-30 years age group (27.52%) followed by 31-40years and 11-20years age group. Toothache (32.3%) was the most common CC followed by decayed tooth (19.1%), wants to remove tooth (9.5%). The elderly age group had CC in the form of toothache (31.48%); wants remove the tooth (22.22%) followed by loose tooth (18.51%). Conclusion: From this study it can be concluded that there are variations in dental visits with respect to different age groups and gender. Large scale studies with complete and accurate data collection will definitely aid dental care in a manner by which dental health care programmes at national level can effectively implemented.