Knowledge, Awareness and Attitude towards Prosthodontic Rehabilitation among the General Population in Bengaluru City - A Cross-Sectional Survey

Background: The prosthodontic health status and prosthodontic rehabilitation of Bengaluru city’s local population are not well documented. As prosthodontists, it is important to know how much concerned the people are towards oral health and what is their attitude, how aware are they about various available treatments and how much knowledge do they have about its importance in order to give them oral health education, create awareness and help develop the practice guidelines. Hence, the aim of the survey was to assess the knowledge, awareness and attitude of the general population in Bengaluru city towards prosthodontic rehabilitation. Material and Methods: We divided Bengaluru city (total area of about 286 sq. miles) arbitrarily into four zones, namely, North zone, South zone, East zone and West zone. A total of 2516 subjects belonging to the age group of 35 to 74 years from all the four zones were surveyed with a questionnaire which was either in English or in Kannada (local language) with sixteen closed-ended questions. The statistical analysis of the data collected through the questionnaire was done using SPSS (V-22) software. Results: The age of the subjects who participated in the survey ranged between thirty-five to seventy-four years. Among the 2516 subjects, 1283 were male subjects and 1233 were female subjects. It was found that most of the subjects (77.2%) visited the oral health care provider only when they had any dental problems. About 54.4% of the subjects who participated in the survey had not got their missing teeth replaced. About 74.9% of the subjects had restrained themselves from getting the treatment thinking that the prosthetic treatment is expensive. Conclusion: On summarizing the data obtained from the survey, it was understood that there is a strong requirement to create awareness among people about the prosthodontic rehabilitation of missing teeth. Even though there are many government programs and schemes that offer the essential dental treatments for free of cost, due to lack of awareness and knowledge regarding the same, the general public is still not approaching for the improvement of their oral health status and ignoring their dental problems thinking that the treatment is too expensive. Therefore, it is of utmost importance for the dentists to reach out to the general public, create awareness about the importance of oral health and various facilities available from the government for the dental treatments and extend the treatment hoping to improve their future quality of life through dental camps and prosthodontic outreach programs.