ABSTRACT
Background: Smokeless tobacco use in the Indian subcontinent is a part of many religious and cultural rituals and has gained a degree of social acceptance. The deleterious effects of smokeless tobacco are not as well-known as those produced by smoking. Objectives: The study was carried out to assess the influence of tobacco chewing on the oral health of adult patients attending the dental outpatients department of Khordha district headquarter, Odisha. Methods: A hospital-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 25–64-year-old patients attending the dental outpatient department of Gopabandhu Khordha district headquarter hospital. A total of 512 study participants, who were age and sex matched, were stratified into four age groups such as 25–34 years, 35–44 years, 45–54 years, and 55–64 years old. Oral health status of the participants was assessed using modified WHO Oral Health Assessment Form (2013). Pearson's Chi-square test, binary and multinomial logistic regression was performed to determine the relationship between oral health problems and tobacco chewing. Results: Among the tobacco chewers, 59.8% had gingival bleeding, 40.6% had periodontal pockets, 30.1% had loss of attachment, 48.4% had attrition, and 4.3% had potentially malignant disorders. Compared to the nonchewers, these oral problems were significantly higher among the chewers. Whereas dental caries experience was significantly lower among the chewers (40.6%) compared to the nonchewers (54.7%). Compared to the nonchewers, chewers had 1.71 times increased odds for gingival bleeding, 1.71 times increased odds for periodontal pockets, 2.39 times increased odds for loss of attachment, and 2.49 times increased odds for attrition, which were statistically significant. Conclusion: Hence, the study revealed that tobacco chewing definitely had an influence on oral health, with statistically significant increase in oral health problems in chewers compared to nonchewers. Moreover, loss of attachment and potentially malignant disorders increased significantly with the frequency of tobacco chewing. Periodontal pockets, attrition, and loss of attachment significantly increased with the duration of the chewing habit.
ABSTRACT
Introduction: Quantum of ocular morbidity in India especially in elderly has been increasingly high year over, probably due to their increasing population, higher longevity and unavailability of timely ophthalmic care as well as increasing life expectancy. Materials & Methods: The present study was thus designed to study the ocular morbidity profile of elderly people attending SGT Hospital, Gurugram. A hospital based cross-sectional study on ocular morbidities among elderly was conducted at Medical College Hospital, SGT University, Budhera, Gurugram, Haryana for a period of one year, from June 2017 to May 2018 after the institutional ethical clearance. A total of 1236 elderly patients fulfilling the inclusion criteria were enrolled, out of which 841 subjects were willing to participate in the study. All selected cases were subjected to history taking, personal interview, detailed ocular examination and necessary investigations as required. Data entry and analysis was done using Epi-info software. Results: Out of total 841 study participants, 433 (51.9%) were males and 408 (48.1%) were females with a male to female ratio of 1.06:1 with no statistical significant difference between the age groups and the gender. Refractive error was found to be the most common ocular morbidity among all the study participants followed by cataract, corneal opacity, retinopathies, glaucoma and ARMD. The other ocular morbidities were pterygium, dry eye, conjunctivitis, meibomitis, blindness, dacryocystitis, keratitis, endophthalmitis, entropion and blepharitis respectively. Thus It is required to define the priorities for eye care services based on the current population-based data.