RESUMO
BACKGROUND: Dentists play very important role in the oral health education of the community. Thus it is important to know the status of knowledge, attitude, and behavior toward the maintenance of oral health at the student level. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the oral health knowledge, attitude, and behavior among preclinical and clinical dental students. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 147 dental students from 1(st) to 4(th) year of Malabar Dental College, Kerala, in the year of March-June 2010 and was carried out with the help of 30 questionnaires. Age, gender and academic year data were recorded. Statistical analysis was performed with the help of SPSS version 20 using the Student's t-test and one-way ANOVA tests. RESULTS: The difference in scores of oral health knowledge, attitude and behavior between preclinical and clinical dental students was found statistically highly significant (Student's t-test, P < 0.001). The variation of scores of knowledge, attitude, and behavior also showed highly significant increase with the year of study (one-way ANOVA, P < 0.001). While the difference in scores between males and females showed that females have better oral health knowledge than males, but the difference was not statistically significant (Student's t-test, P > 0.01). The present study thus showed improvement of knowledge, attitude and behavior with the academic years and there was no bias of gender with reference to oral health. CONCLUSIONS: Although oral health knowledge, attitude and behavior showed improved results from 1(st) to 4(th) year dental students, it should be improved in order to serve better for the community in the future.
RESUMO
BACKGROUND: Ideal dental restoration is one which not only restores optimal functions but also confirm to standard dental and facial relations. This is important to achieve long term patient satisfaction both with regard to esthetics as well as functions. Objective was to find a credible relationship between dental and facial proportions using height of individuals as the criteria in a specific group of population. To determine a regression equation for determination of various dental and facial proportions using height. MATERIALS AND METHODS: One hundred and forty-four (n = 144) students, of which 91 were males (n = 91) and 53 were females (n = 53) of the dental college participated in this study. Height of the individual, the lower facial height, inter-incisal and inter-canine and inter-commissural width was measured as per protocol and resulting data was analyzed using SPSS 17 (SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 17.0. Chicago SPSS Inc. Released 2008) version software regression equations were obtained. RESULTS: The study included 144 college students significant correlations were found between height of the individuals, inter-canine distance and lower facial height using Pearson correlation coefficient. The calculated values of t-test were significant. Regression equations were determined for determination of various parameters using height as the sole criteria. CONCLUSION: There exists a definite relationship between height of the individual and their dental and facial parameters in this group of population and values of maxillary anterior teeth can be determined using regression equations.
