Oral healthcare-seeking behavior and perception of oral health and general healthcare among WHO indexed age groups in East-Coast India

INTRODUCTION: In a country where 30,570 dentists graduate per year, it is staggering to acknowledge that only 10% of dentists serve the rural people, who constitute around 68.8% of the country's population. AIM: To find out the oral healthcare-seeking behavior, profile, and pattern in Tenali Mandal among WHO recommended index age groups. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional, multilocality, single-visit study was done to acknowledge the oral healthcare-seeking behavior, profile, and pattern in Tenali Mandal, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh. There are 9 villages, 2 peri-urban, and 1 town present in the Tenali Mandal and the study was conducted following the National Pathfinder Survey. RESULTS: Around 35.4% of the study participants utilized dental services while most of them sought care in the last 1–6 months (23.4%) and the main reason for the last dental visit was tooth pain (13.1%), followed by decayed tooth without pain (6.9%). Dental care-seeking behavior among the age group of 12 years was 1.611 times more when compared to 65–74 years age group which was statistically significant (P ≤ 0.010). For dental care-seeking behavior among gender, the males utilized 0.982 times less when compared to females which was not statistically significant (P ≤ 0.881), while for the place of residence, urban place was 2.707 times more utilizing the services when compared to rural place which was statistically significant (P ≤ 0.001). CONCLUSION: The results of the study indicates that the barriers of oral healthcare-seeking behavior among dental health conditions poses public health problems in the study area, as well as it is an important baseline indicator against which target for oral health improvement can be set and monitored.