Knowledge, attitude and practice of undergraduate medical students in Madurai regarding oral health: A cross sectional survey

Introduction: Proper Knowledge of oral diseases is crucial in medical practice due to the following reasons, periodontal diseases are associated with multiple systemic conditions of medical interest, a large number of systemic diseases have oral manifestations, and many drugs are associated with oral adverse drug reactions and majority of the population approach medical practitioners for their oral health problems.1 Aim: To assess Knowledge, Attitude and Practice among Undergraduate Medical Students of Madurai regarding Oral Health. Materials and Methods: 313 subjects took part in the questionnaire survey. A descriptive cross sectional survey was conducted using a self-administered questionnaire, in English language containing 22 close ended questions. The questions are related to awareness about oral hygiene practices including brushing technique, brushing time, importance given to oral screening & referral of patients with dental problem to dentists and regarding the intellect of medical students about premalignant lesions/conditions, awareness of risk factors and prevention of oral diseases. Test-retest reliability revealed an accepted value of Cronback's alpha >0.6. The results were analyzed by descriptive statistics and Chi square test using SPSS version 22. Result: 64.89% of final year students, 65.21% of third year students and 60.61% of second year students had responded correctly to oral health knowledge, attitude and practice based questions. Conclusion: Oral health awareness among undergraduate medical students was found to be satisfactory. Educational curriculum requires more extensive oral health programs.