Knowledge, Attitude, Perception of Patients Using Smokeless Tobacco Towards Oral Cancer Risk For Tobacco Usage

Objectives: The objective of this study is to evaluate the knowledge of the patients about the consequences of tobacco chewing on the oral health, to analyse the attitude of the patients for the health counselling given by the dentist, To analyse the perception of the patients weather they going to follow the instructions and stop the tobacco usage. Materials and Methods: A descriptive study was conducted in a sample of 50 dental patients visiting Saveetha Dental College and Hospital, Chennai in the month of May 2015 using self-administered questionnaire. Descriptive statistics was performed to analyze the data. Results: Patients who have knowledge on smoking effects are about 50% and 38% of patients are not aware of the effects of smoking remaining 12% patients are not sure about the effects of smoking. Nearly 45.8% of the patients got a positive attitude towards the anti-tobacco councelling34.2% of the patients have negative attitude and 20% of patients are not sure of their attitude towards anti-tobacco counselling. Patients who have positive perception of about the role of dentists in tobacco cessation activities are about 48%, 22% of the patients still wanted to continue after knowing the ill effects of the tobacco usage and 30% of the patients are not sure whether they can follow the instructions given by the dentist.