Awareness about the periodontal disease and diabetes mellitus interrelationship among diabetic patients

Background and aim: the awareness about bidirectional relationship between periodontitis and diabetes mellitus (dm) is not well known among the malaysian population. this study aimed to evaluate the level of awareness of periodontal disease (pd)-dm interrelationship and self-reported periodontal health among patients with dm.methods: patients who attended the diabetic clinic were systematically and randomly invited to participate in this cross-sectional study. consented participants completed a validated self-administered questionnaire and provided information on socio-demographic background, oral hygiene practice, periodontal health status, and awareness about whether there is relationship between pd and dm. the level of hemoglobin a1c (hba1c) was obtained from the medical record. descriptive and logistic regression analyses were carried out using spss software with p < 0.05 considered as significant.results: a total of 123 patients with dm with a mean age of 62.20 ± 9.55 years participated in the study. the mean duration of living with dm was 10.62 ± 6.52 years and that for hba1c level was 9.08 ± 2.24 mmol/l. about 53% of the participants had signs of pd, but only 22% perceived that they had pd. only 15% were aware of the pd-dm interrelationship. the odds of knowing the definition and cause of pd and believing that oral health could be better without dm were greater in participants who had the awareness compared to those without awareness (p < 0.01).conclusion: this study showed that patients with dm had a low level of awareness about pd-dm interrelationship which could be due to a lack of understanding about pd. it is recommended that patients with dm should be referred to a dental clinic for oral health counselling.