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Volume 4 Issue 1 (January - February, 2016)

Original Articles

KNOWLEDGE AND AWARENESS OF ORAL CANCER IN PATIENTS ATTENDING DENTAL O.P.D. OF A DENTAL COLLEGE IN BILASPUR, INDIA
Ketaki Kinikar, Sandeep Prakash, Ashok Kumar Gupta, Deepti Dhingra, Shweta Hegde

Aim: To determine the level of knowledge and awareness of oral cancer amongst the patients referred to the Department of Oral Medicine and Radiology in Triveni Institute of Dental Sciences Hospital and Research Centre, Bodri, Bilaspur. Methodology: The study was conducted with 1,125 patients who came for routine dental examinations. The authors collected information with a 20-item questionnaire from the patients about oral cancer risk factors, epidemiology, etiology, and signs and symptoms. Results: Descriptive statistics of demographic variables and other data were reported as means and percentages. Statistical analysis was performed by means of SPSS +11.0 statistical package. Overall, only 48.9% of all patients showed awareness of oral cancer, with awareness especially poor among lower socioeconomic groups. Awareness of oral cancer risk factors and signs and symptoms did not vary significantly between men and women (P > 0.5); however, older participants (aged 40-64 years) were more familiar with oral cancer signs than younger participants. More than half of all participants (56.8%) were unaware of the common clinical presentations of oral cancer. Conclusion: The results of this survey showed knowledge regarding oral cancer to be quite low. Thus, educational programs are needed to increase public awareness about oral cancer, and also the need for dentists to motivate suspected patients to undergo screening for oral cancer to ensure early detection.
Keywords: Oral cancer, oral cancer knowledge, oral cancer education

Corresponding author: Dr. Ketaki Kinikar, Assistant Professor, Department of Oral Medicine and Radiology, Triveni Institute of Dental Sciences and Research Centre, Bodri, Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh

This article may be cited as:  Kinikar K, Prakash S, Gupta AK, Dhingra D, Hegde S. Knowledge and awareness of oral cancer in patients attending dental O.P.D. of a Dental College in Bilaspur, India. J Adv Med Dent Scie Res 2016;4(1):6-9.

 
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