Assessment of knowledge and awareness among nursing students of a private medical university towards periodontal health and oral-systemic disease link: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background Health is a global human demand for all strata of population. Oral health plays an essential role to conserve the overall general health. Many systemic conditions have been linked in association with periodontitis, such as preterm low birth weight infants, cardiovascular disease and related events such as angina, myocardial infarction, stroke, respiratory diseases, and diabetes mellitus. Education of oral health is considered to abide an essential prerequisite for oral health-related behavior. This survey was carried out to determine the level of knowledge and awareness about periodontal health and its oral-systemic disease link amongst the nursing students of private medical university. Aim To perceive an understanding among students of nursing college at private university on periodontal health and their knowledge about oral health and link of systemic disease with the help of a questionnaire survey. Patients and methods Three hundred and fifty nursing students were provided with a self-constructed 15 items questionnaire. χ2 test was utilized for individual questions and Kruskal–Wallis test was applied to compare overall periodontal health awareness and awareness about oral-systemic link among students of nursing college. Results and conclusion A total of 350 questionnaires were distributed, out of which all 350 were completed by the students and evaluated for the study with an overall response of questions rate of 97%. The study indicated that 40% of the nursing students were having knowledge about the health of gums and oral hygiene maintenance. Thirty-seven percent were aware about the oral hygiene practices and 23% were familiar about the perio-systemic disease link. But 77% were unaware about the correlation between the periodontal health and systemic diseases.