Oral health taking a back seat at primary health centers of Bangalore urban district, India – A situation analysis

BACKGROUND: Even though a dramatic change in pattern of oral diseases has been observed at a global level, oral health equality still remains as a dream to achieve. Studies have documented disparities in delivery and utilisation of oral health services among urban, suburban, and rural regions of India. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to conduct a situation analysis at PHCs to understand resource availability and oral health seeking behavior from perspective of medical officers of Bangalore City, India. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A structured questionnaire was validated using Lawshe technique and was given across medical and dental officers present at 65 Primary Health Centers. Data collected was entered in Excel sheet and further subjected to Descriptive statistics using SPSS version 20. RESULTS: Among 65 PHCs, about 18 PHCs had dental officers posted. In those 18 PHCs only 2 were maintained by the state government and others by Private dental college. In the 65 PHCs , only one PHC maintained a separate register for dental complaints, whereas 48 of them had maintained a combined register for both general and oral complaints. With regard to the management of tooth-related complaints, about 48 of medical officers reported that they dispense the patients affected by providing antibiotics and pain killers (analgesics) and recall, whereas 12 medical officers reported that they get the existing condition treated and refer and the rest refer the patients directly to hospitals. clinics. CONCLUSION: The results highlight the challenges experienced by nondental primary-care providers and their views on access to oral health to be improved. It is high time that the state government should put oral health policies into practice by recruiting adequate dental officers and providing separate dental infrastructure at the urban PHCs for better utilisation of dental care services.