Knowledge On Oral Hygiene Practices And Assessment Of Oral Health Status Among Transgender Community Residing In Chennai Metropoliton City – A Descriptive Cross-Sectional Study
European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine,
2020, Volume 7, Issue 8, Pages 1698-1704
Abstract
Background: Increasing the knowledge and demystifying sexual minority issues can enhance the confidence and attitudes of health care workers when treating transgender population. Impartial service delivery, health promotion and “doing good” are essential attributes of care for all populations. It is widely accepted that oral health plays an important role in overall health. The aim of this study was to assess the oral health knowledge, community periodontal index of treatment needs (CPITN) and to find out the association between OHI-S index and age of the study participants.Methods:
This was a descriptive cross-sectional study done among 75 transgenders residing in an urban area of Kancheepuram district. Purposive sampling method and snowball sampling was followed to recruit the study participants. The knowledge of oral hygiene practices was assessed by a pretested semi-structured questionnaire. Community periodontal index of treatment needs CPITN Index was used to assess the periodontal status of the study participants and OHI-S index was used to assess the Chennaioral hygiene status. The data was entered in MS Excel and analyzed using SPSS version 21.
Results
In this study, 57% of them cleaned their teeth once in a day, 83% used toothpaste with brush and more than 40% of them were ignorant of bleeding gums and preventive measures. Around
22% of them had calculus and 32% of them had less than 5 pockets. There was a statistically significant association between age and oral hygiene status of the individuals.
Conclusions
Oral health status was very poor, and oral health knowledge, among transgender population was inadequate. These findings may help us to promote the oral health education and establish a model for dentists to work for improving oral health.
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