Oral health literacy of patients attending community dental outreach program: A cross-sectional study.

Background: Limited health literacy among adults contributes to poor health outcomes. Low health and oral health literacy (OHL) are particularly more visible among rural population of developing countries.

Objective: The present study was done to assess OHL among patients attending a community dental outreach program in Punjab, India.

Material and methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 652 patients who attended who attended community dental out-reach program regularly organized by the institute. A self-constructed questionnaire (divided into Section A and Section B) written in English and Punjabi language was given to each subject. OHL was graded on a 15-point Likert scale and was assessed as low, medium and high on the basis of sum of total responses. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS-21 statistical package. ANOVA and Student t-test were used to do comparisons between different groups.

Results: 52.4% of the study subjects had low OHL scores and only 19.3% of subjects had high scores. Dental terms like 'mouth-guard', 'abrasion' and 'abscess' were known to only 20.4%, 37.4% and 32.5% of the subjects respectively. The mean OHL score revealed a significant association with the occupation (p=0.035) of study subjects. Only 45.2% of study subjects were 'interested in seeking more information on oral health' and it was significantly associated with the educational qualification of study subjects.

Conclusions: More than half of the subjects had low OHL scores. There is an urgent need to address this problem, especially among the rural population by taking appropriate measures by the government so that their health literacy level can be raised.