Myths And Misconceptions About Dental Care Among Adult Population Visiting A Dental Institution

Background: India, a developing country faces many challenges in rendering health needs to its countrymen. Indian population consists of people from varied cultural and religious backgrounds. In Indian view point, a dental myth regularly emerges from conventional belief of non exploratory base. People believe in spiritual treatment and alternative forms of medicine, they prefer visiting a hakim (local traditional practitioner) to a doctor. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted with approval from institutional ethical committee of SIBAR Institute of dental sciences, Andhra Pradesh. A self administered questionnaire based survey was conducted among out- patient division of the institution. Results: In the present study 87.7% of the participants said that tooth problems should be taken seriously and cannot be neglected.42.3% agreed to the myth that ‘’no visible dental problem means no need to visit the dentist’’. Discussion: A positive finding of the present study, i.e., 18.3 percent believed that placing a medicament beside a painful tooth can relieve pain is significantly less than 30.8 percent of Raina SA et al. Conclusion: The results of the current study showed that myths still hover in the minds of the common people. Key words: Myths, dental students, institution.