Dental awareness among medical students- A cross sectional study

Context: Awareness of dentistry among medical students. Aim: To assess the awareness of dentistry among medical students. Settings and Design: To assess the awareness of dentistry among medical students, a structured questionnaire consisting of 17 closed end questions was prepared and sent to 750 people who included exam going final year MBBS students and interns from various medical colleges in Telangana. This questionnaire was prepared & sent using Google Forms though E-mail and Whatsapp and the participants were asked to submit the response in 15 days. A total of 506 responses were received in 15 days. Google Forms automatically tabulates the submitted responses in pie diagrams. Statistical Analysis Used: All the submitted responses from the participants were automatically analysed statistically by the Google Forms in the form of Pie diagrams. Results: The results show some interesting points and highlight some significant findings on awareness of dentistry among medical students. Conclusions: Majority of the participants do not know about proper brushing technique and were brushing only once daily. Many participants were unaware of consequences of ignoring the dental problems. Many are not aware of preventive dentistry and they lack knowledge about aesthetic dentistry. Majority of the participants know that there is a separate specialist for root canal treatment and for the treatment of irregularly arranged teeth. Most of the participants do not know about the systemic diseases related to dental problems.