Factors affecting dental attitudes of the adults of South India: A cross sectional study

Objective: This study evaluates various factors which can influence the dental attitude of adult patients towards their dental health and care. Material and Method: It was a cross-sectional study consisting of self-administered structured questionnaire on patients’ dental attitude as well as socio demographic variables completed by 377 patients; mean age 34.3 years recruited from the dental centers of Manipal College of Dental Sciences in Udupi Taluk, Karnataka, India. Frequency distribution analysis and chi-square test was used to compare between categorical variables. Results: The good dental attitude were significantly found in subjects those belonged to urban places (p<0.001), had higher SES (p=0.003), had better financial capacity (p<0.001), were able to pay the bills comfortably (<0.001), were satisfied with their dentists (p<0.001) and those believed in having personal responsibility in taking care of their oral health (p<0.001) than their counterparts (p<0.001). The poor dental attitudes were significantly found in subjects those agreed that cost had influenced their treatment in the past (p<0.001), those believed to get over any dental problem by itself (p<0.001) and eventually losing their teeth regardless of the efforts (p<0.001), those had cynicism towards dentists and dental care (p<0.001) and those dental treatment didn’t work out well (p<0.001). Conclusion: Health promotion strategies focused on changing the dental attitudes of patients based upon these determinants can achieve better compliance of the patients towards dental health advice and care.