A Comparative Study on Self-rated Oral Health Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices in a Marginalized Community From Eastern Nepal

Abstract

Background: Oral health knowledge, attitude and practices are essential components of general human health, and its assessment can serve to identify risk factors and design appropriate behavior modification strategies. However, studies on poor and marginalized people who have a higher proportion of oral health problems are relatively scarce. This study aimed to assess the differences in level of knowledge, attitudes and practices between the under-privileged and the privileged population of a rural location in eastern Nepal.
 Methods: The under-privileged and privileged population were compared based on the classification of Nepal Government and one respondent from each household was assessed for oral health knowledge, attitude and practices. Chi-square test with odds ratio (OR) were computed for inferential statistics with the probability of significance set at 95% of Confidence Interval (CI).
 Results: Of the total participants (1145), almost 50% had poor knowledge on oral health hygiene. Based on their ethnicity, 46.2% fell in the under-privileged category. The privileged groups had more odds (OR) of cleaning their oral cavity [OR=3.5], using tooth brush [OR=2.04], brushing more than once per day [OR=2.3] and visiting dentist for dental problems [OR=2.1] which was statistically significant.
 Conclusion: The study population had poor knowledge (≈ 50%) on dental health hygiene. Privileged groups were more likely to clean their oral cavity, use tooth brush, visit dentist for dental problems and brush more than once per day which was statistically significant. This calls for behavior change communication activities on oral hygiene practices.

Influence of gender and oral health knowledge on DMFT index: a cross sectional study among school children in Kaski District, Nepal

“…We did not take the highest grade of basic level schools as the students of Grade Eight would graduate to secondary schools and our intervention would not be able to capture those. We took the reference prevalence of dental caries as 60% among school children while calculating the estimated sample size [ 9 ]. We also considered 95% confidence interval and 80% of the power of the study.…”

“…To add further, 58% of the schoolchildren aged between 5–6 years were affected by dental caries. The study also revealed that oral health problems were the prime reason of missing school in Nepal, where 32% of the students missed their school due to dental pain [ 9 ].…”