ASSESSMENT OF ORAL HYGIENE PRACTICES, ATTITUDE AND AWARENESS AMONG POPULATION OF SOUTH -WEST AREAS OF LUDHIANA CITY

Abstract

Background-considering fundamental importance of the topic i.e. oral hygiene and practices, present
study utilizing SES (socioeconomic status) score becomes pertinent. Studies have been done with
reference to various other parameters like education, demographic location etc. till now. Only a
limited number of studies are done in the past considering educational qualification, occupation and
per capita income of family. As some major conclusions can be drawn using these radical parameters.
Aim-To assess oral hygiene practices, attitude and awareness among population of South -west areas
of Ludhiana city in relation to socioeconomic status using modified kuppuswamy scale to evaluate
SES score.
Materials and methods- A cross-sectional, descriptive study was designed for a sample size of 800.
Self-designed questionnaire was given to each participant data and data was entered to a excel sheet.
Further, analysis was performed by SPSS Version 13; chi-square test was applied to check
correlation between attributes.
Results-It is observed that more that 50% of the sample population cleaned oral cavity twice and
54.9% spent 3-5 minutes on oral hygiene practices daily.There were statistically significant (P≤0.000)
difference compared to the people who used toothbrush to clean teeth. There was significant
association when compared people visit to dentist with kuppuswamy scale score. Most people were
aware of effect of diet on good oral hygiene and were again statistically significant with kuppuswamy
scale score.
Conclusion: The SES has an impact on the oral hygiene practices of the patients as it affects the
ability of an individual for utilization of dental health care services. Also, individual motivation and
awareness is responsible for present oral health conditions.