Knowledge and practices of Indian dental students regarding the prescription of antibiotics and analgesics.

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Making a diagnosis and prescribing medicine is the most important skill required by any doctor in the colleges, hospitals or clinical practice. Prescribing is the intervention that has the greatest influence on patients' health requiring complex series of sub-competencies like making a diagnosis, setting a therapeutic goal, choosing the approach, choosing the best drug, route and frequency of administration, duration of therapy, writing the prescription, patient information, monitoring drug effects and, lastly, review the prescription.The aim of this research is to assess the knowledge and practices of Indian dental students regarding the prescription of antibiotics and analgesics. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 870 Undergraduate and Post-graduate dental students of Udaipur city. A close ended, pretested questionnaire was administered to students. The data were analyzed using the student's t -test and one-way ANOVA with post hoc Bonferroni test. RESULTS: A total of 870 students participated in the study. Most of them were females and were pursuing undergraduate studies. Post graduate students had greater medication prescription knowledge than the undergraduate students. Nevertheless, practice of medication prescription among these two was found adequate. CONCLUSION: Undergraduate dental students have lower knowledge about medication prescription as compared to post-graduate students. Also, knowledge of prescription of medicines in males were higher in comparison to females, though prescription practices of all the dental students was found almost similar.

Relationship between Parental Bonding and Tobacco Specific Practices as Predictors of Tobacco Usage in Adults.

INTRODUCTION: Parents influence their child's conduct and adolescence hostility either directly or indirectly. Similarly children can acquire a particular behaviour by observing and intentionally imitating their parents in order to simply copy them without understanding the positive or negative outcome. AIM: To assess and compare the association between parental tobacco usage and parental bonding with participants tobacco usage habits. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 130 adults. Information pertaining to demographics, parental bonding (using parental bonding index) and behavioural habits (e.g., smoking, alcohol) of both participants and their parents was collected with the use of a questionnaire-based interview. Tobacco usage was measured as categorical variable as ever chewer and never chewer. Chi-square test, independent sample t-test, multinomial logistic regression and rotated factor loadings was used to analyse the data. RESULTS: Majority of the participants were males with a mean age of 30.4±8.5 years. Tobacco use was prevalent among less educated males. Parental smokeless tobacco use, paternal alcohol and maternal paan chewing was significantly associated with participants adverse habits. Multinomial logistic regression showed a significant association between parental and participant's tobacco usage. Perceived parental bonding were also significantly associated with participant's tobacco usage habit. CONCLUSION: Parental bonding measures and tobacco usage was significantly associated with the participant's tobacco use. Hence, interventional and educational efforts to weaken intergenerational influences should target parents. In addition to parents, the smoking behaviour of adults should also be targeted for prevention efforts.

Effect of Training School Teachers on Oral Hygiene Status of 8-10 Years Old Government School Children of Udaipur City, India.

INTRODUCTION: Provision of oral health knowledge to the children by their teachers at the school level can prove to be more fruitful because it is the time period during which the children begin to learn the basic oral hygiene practices and are most prone to dental caries. AIM: This study was carried out to assess the effect of training school teachers on oral hygiene status of 8-10 years old government school children of Udaipur city, India. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of nine school teachers and 279, 8-10 year old school children from two government schools were included in the study. The questionnaire on oral health knowledge and practice contained 17 questions to evaluate the knowledge and practice of children towards oral hygiene before and after the teachers training program. Baseline and six months post training data on oral health knowledge and practice was obtained by the questionnaire method. Baseline and six months post training data on oral hygiene status was obtained by OHI-S Index. Statistical analysis was done using software SPSS 22, the test used were McNemar's test, paired t-test. RESULTS: Pre and post training data were compared and it was found that there was a significant improvement in oral health knowledge and practices of school teachers and children. Also oral hygiene status of school children was significantly improved after the program. CONCLUSION: Results of the present study suggest that experiential learning is an effective school based oral health education method for improvement of oral hygiene in primary school children.