DENTAL STUDENTS DIETARY PRACTICES: AN INSTITUTIONAL BASED QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY

Authors

  • Afrin Nisha. M, Dhanraj Ganapathy, L. Keerthi Sasanka

Abstract

Introduction: Oral diseases are one of the most common diseases with a wide spread in developed and developing countries. These are the ones which can be overcome by dietary practices and a balanced diet is the key factor to gain the right nutrients and energy to the body. A diet which is healthy, based on vitamins and nutrients including  non - sticky foods, fibrous foods, Milk & dairy products and Food from Vegetable sources. Aim of the study is to know about the dietary practises among dental students.

Materials and methods:  A structural questionnaire was prepared and circulated among first year dental students through google forms. A list of 12 questionnaires that can possibly influence students' decisions was presented to students of dental institution.  Statistical analysis is done using the chi-square test. The statistical software used was SPSS version 23 (IBM).

Results: From the survey conducted among 155 students,  Majority of dental students said that Nutrition should be emphasized in the dental curriculum (70.93%) and (29.07%) said no. Majority of dental students said that time is constraint for diet counselling (68.02%) and 31.98% said no. Majority of them said that occurrence of dental caries is related to dietary habits (52.91%), Thumb sucking habit (19.19%) and the rest of them said none of these two (27.91%). The majority of them have no confidence in counselling a patient (36.63%), (27.91% ) have confidence in counselling a patient and the rest of them are not sure about it (35.47%). In the chi-square test, if the p-value was less than 0.05, it was considered to be statistically significant.

Conclusion: Our present study reveals that a balanced diet has brought plenty of positive effects, so once the individual maintains this nutrition diet, the potential cause of having a disorder would be rare. Overall, this study shows that intake of a balanced diet among dental students is more convincing. Therefore, initiatives should be taken immediately to create awareness about the importance of consuming a balanced diet and their benefits in creating a healthy human life.

Published

2022-05-01 — Updated on 2022-05-10

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How to Cite

Afrin Nisha. M, Dhanraj Ganapathy, L. Keerthi Sasanka. (2022). DENTAL STUDENTS DIETARY PRACTICES: AN INSTITUTIONAL BASED QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY. Drugs and Cell Therapies in Hematology, 10(3), 1179–1188. Retrieved from http://www.dcth.org/index.php/journal/article/view/1035 (Original work published May 1, 2022)

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