RESUMO
Oral submucous fibrosis is being recognized now as a chronic, insidious, premalignant condition affecting the mucosa of oral cavity, pharynx and the portion of upper oesophagus. Characteristically, it shows epithelial and sub-epithelial inflammation followed by fibro-elastic alterations in sub-mucosal region thereby leading to difficulty in opening mouth. Thus, stiffness of oral mucosa causes trismus and inability to eat. If untreated at earliest, it can progress to squamous cell carcinoma. Wardha is the smallest district in Maharashtra and a significant number of cases of oral submucous fibrosis and oral cancer are reported at the tertiary care hospital of the Health Sciences University. This study was conducted to shed light on the Scientific Productions of this Health Sciences University in Central India regarding cancers and oral submucous fibrosis over the period of last 15 years. METHODSThe Scopus and Web of Science databases were accessed, and the publications affiliated to the University were retrieved using the specified search query. The publications thus accessed were imported as BibText and RIS files and checked for duplicates in both databases. Duplicates were removed, and the final list of publications was prepared. Data related to finalised publications was imported to R-Studio application for producing the graphs and plots related to the number of scientific productions. RESULTSThe search generated a data of a total of 191 documents from 71 Sources (Journals, Books, etc.) for the period from 2007 – 2020. The number of authors included a list of 1356 authors. Authors of single-authored documents were 6; whereas, authors of multi-authored documents were 1350. Thus, there were 7.1 authors per document, 9.13 co-authors per document. The Collaboration Index was 7.3. Average citations per document was 37. CONCLUSIONSThe university has contributed significantly to the scientific literature on oral submucous fibrosis.
RESUMO
Oral health is the most important but often neglected entity of life. Studies have revealed that literacy skills and knowledge are strong predictors of individual’s health status than age, income, employment status, education level, racial group or ethnic group. The objective of this study was to investigate how oral health literacy relates to oral health knowledge, attitude and practices among the street hawkers and fruit vendors.METHODSA cross-sectional study was conducted using a Marathi pretested, close ended, structured and validated questionnaire to assess oral health knowledge, attitude, practices and literacy among the street hawkers and fruit vendors. The data was collected, entered and analysed using SPSS Version 21.RESULTSThe study shows that only 24.4% of the participants knew that teeth were important for chewing, talking and appearance, 86.7% of the participants knew that consumption of sweets causes tooth decay, 80.4% knew that brushing teeth prevents dental caries and 91.6% knew that visiting a dentist prevents dental problems. Regarding oral hygiene practices, 16.4% used tooth paste with toothbrush, 44.4% brushed twice daily, 47.6% used tobacco more than once daily and 34.7% visited dentist when they experienced tooth ache. In case of oral health literacy, 35.6% answered correctly that bleeding gum is an inflamed gum, 32% knew that plaque is soft debris on teeth, 21.3% participants knew that fluoride strengthens the teeth and 95.1% were aware that eating/smoking tobacco causes oral cancer.CONCLUSIONSOur study shows that oral health literacy was limited. The awareness on oral health knowledge was good with positive attitude but practices were fair among the street hawkers and fruit vendors. Therefore, measures should be taken to improve OHL level and develop skills of self-management about oral hygiene behaviour which will promote the oral health practices.