Tobacco Habits, Oral Mucosal Lesions and Counselling Provided to Support Staff of Educational Institutions Situated in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Tobacco has approximately one billion users and claims the life of one person every six seconds on an average. AIM: To assess the tobacco habits and related oral mucosal lesions and tobacco cessation counselling provided to the support staff of various educational schools situated in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India. MATERIALS AND METHOD: Data was collected in two steps. The first step included data collection using the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS), 2011 which was modified according to the needs of the population. The second step included recording of Oral Mucosal Lesions through the “Oral Mucosa” component of the WHO Oral Health Assessment Form(1997) by a standardized investigator. Data was tabulated and the student’s t-test and Spearman’s correlation were applied to find out significant associations, if any. Data was analysed using SPSS version 21.0 and p was kept significant at ≤0.05. RESULTS: Tobacco consumption in any form was found in 47.1% subjects consisting of 37 males (90.2%)and 4 females (9.8%). Smoking was found in 16 subjects (18.4%) comprising of 13 males (14.9%) and 3 females(3.4%). Lesions were observed in 58.5% of the population, with the most common lesion being leucoplakia (27%), followed by any other lesion (24%) and malignant lesions (7%). A positive correlation was observed in three variables; the first being an increased willingness to quit with increased current consumption (r=0.67), followed by willingness to quit due to presence of a lesion (r=0.71) and willingness to quit due to provision of any type of counselling (r=0.70). CONCLUSION: It is important that efforts are directed towards reducing and subsequently eliminating tobacco consumption among support staff of various educational schools who have a high percentage of tobacco intake.