Oral health literacy: A practical strategy towards better oral health status among adult population of Ghaziabad district

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Despite tremendous considerable effort by health professionals to promote oral health to create beautiful smiles, gap between oral health knowledge and practice undoubtedly still remains. Thus the aim of this study was to assess the Oral health literacy level and its impact on socioeconomic and oral health status among adult population in Ghaziabad district. METHODS: A total of 600 study subjects aged 18-64 years from all 4 blocks of Ghaziabad visiting various outreach programmes using a multistage random sampling technique were included in the study. A specially designed questionnaire assessed the demographic variables. Oral health literacy level (OHL) was assessed with help of a bilingually adapted Hindi OHL tool. Clinical examination was recorded using WHO (World Health Organization) Oral Health Assessment Form 2013. RESULTS: The mean age of the study subjects was 43.9 ± 14.36 years. Majority 300 (50%) study subjects had inadequate oral health literacy level followed by Marginal oral health literacy level which was seen among 180 (30%) subjects and 120 (20%) subjects had adequate oral health literacy level. Oral health literacy level was slightly higher among females as compared to male subjects although the results were not statistically significant. A statistically significant difference was found between oral health literacy and oral health status as well as socioeconomic status. (P value ≤ 0.05). CONCLUSION: A significant association between OHL and oral health status was found stating Oral health literacy as an efficient role in influencing oral health outcome of any individual.