Oral health literacy: A practical strategy towards better oral health status among adult population of Ghaziabad district
Dipshikha Das, Ipseeta Menon, Ritu Gupta, Vikram Arora, Asifa Ashraf, Iram Ahsan
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Despite tremendous considerable effort by health professionals to promote oral health to create beautiful smiles, gap between oral health knowledge and practice undoubtedly still remains. Thus the aim of this study was to assess the Oral health literacy level and its impact on socioeconomic and oral health status among adult population in Ghaziabad district. METHODS: A total of 600 study subjects aged 18-64 years from all 4 blocks of Ghaziabad visiting various outreach programmes using a multistage random sampling technique were included in the study. A specially designed questionnaire assessed the demographic variables. Oral health literacy level (OHL) was assessed with help of a bilingually adapted Hindi OHL tool. Clinical examination was recorded using WHO (World Health Organization) Oral Health Assessment Form 2013. RESULTS: value ≤ 0.05). CONCLUSION: A significant association between OHL and oral health status was found stating Oral health literacy as an efficient role in influencing oral health outcome of any individual.