Oral-dental health evaluation of the Pamukkale University Medical School students

Purpose:oral and dental health problems are major public health concerns around the world. the aim of this study was to evaluate oral and dental hygiene of medical students at pamukkale university. materials and methods:medical students at pamukkale university took part in this cross-sectional study in november 2012. all the students were asked to participate. participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire that included sociodemographic features and oral hygiene status, which was followed by a physical examination by a dentist. dmt-t index was calculated. “family welfare scale” was used to determine socioeconomic status. descriptive statistics, kruskal-wallis and anova tests were used to evaluate the data. results: 183 students (30%) participated in this study and 51% of the participants were female. 43 (33%) students from grade 1, 62 (46%) from grade 2, 52 (39%) from grade 3, and 26 (12%) from grade 4 participated. 61% of the students had moderate to high socioeconomic status. brushing teeth at least once a day was 88%, and using dental floss regularly was 4%. 6.6% of the students had never been to a dentist and 57% of the students had visited the dentist the previous year. when we evaluated the physical examination results, 26 healthy teeth, 2 fillings, one decaying tooth, 0.5 missing tooth were found per student. 51% of the students had one dental decay. although not statistically significant, females had more fillings and males had more decaying teeth. students’ dmt-t index was 3.66 (±3.17). one factor that affected decaying tooth number was parents’ educational level. students with parents who had graduate degrees had lower decaying tooth averages (0.4±0.9) (p<0.01). conclusion: the fact that 6.6% of the students have never been to a dentist in a health focused faculty, 51% of them having decaying teeth, and dmt-t index being 3.6 is quite remarkable, and it points out that this subject requires more attention.