MY PUBLICATIONS
Dental practitioners' knowledge, attitudes, and practices of ergonomics - a cross-sectional web-based survey
Background and aim: Dentistry is a profession known to have many occupational hazards, including biomechanical, ergonomic, and work factors. We aimed to evaluate dental practitioners' knowledge, attitudes, and practices of ergonomics and to evaluate the significant differences with age, sex, educational qualification and clinical experience.
Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional multi-centric web-based survey among dental practitioners of south India. Dentists who were involved in clinical practice in India with a minimum of 1-year experience were invited to participate in this study. Information on demographics (age, sex, education) and years of practice of the dental practitioners was collected. Knowledge attitude and practice questionnaire was adapted from El Salamy et al. Results: The mean age of the participants was 30.57 (SD=6.95). More than half of the respondents were female (60.1%). Dental practitioners who were less than 28 years old (OR: 0.57), graduates (OR: -0.47), and clinical experience less than three years (OR: -0.53) had a higher probability of having poor or fair knowledge scores. Dental practitioners who were more than 28 years old had a significantly higher probability of positive attitudes (OR: 0.6) and good practices (OR: 0.54). Practitioners with a master's degree had a higher probability of good practices (OR: 1.92). Practitioners with more than three years of clinical experience had a higher likelihood of good practices (OR: 1.72; 95% CI: 1.03 - 2.9).
Conclusions: Overall, we could conclude that dental professionals had predominantly fair to good knowledge, positive attitudes and a high proportion of bad practices.
EXPLORING TRENDS AND FACTORS RELATED TO HOOKAH USE AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS: A CROSS-SECTIONAL SURVEY
Oct 25, 2017 | Click here for full document |
Hookah smoking is an emerging public health concern in India.Hookah smoking is becoming a source of tobacco use among the college students nationwide. Objectives: This study was conducted to determine the trend of hookah use and the factors associated with it among college students in Manipal.It was a cross sectional survey conducted on the students of a dental school in Manipal. Thedata was collected using self-administered structured questionnaires consisting participants’ personal characteristics, health-risk behaviors and factors related to smoking hookah, opinion about increasing trend and perceptions about the harmful effects of hookah smokingdistributed among all the students of the college.The study sample of 332 dental students consisted of 247 females (74%) and 85 males (26%) with the mean age of 20 years. A total of 121 students (36%) have reported to had smoked hookah at one or more occasions (ever smokers). Out of those students that reported ever smoked hookah 72 subjects (22 %) are current hookah smokers and 49 subjects (15 %) have smoked hookah only once for trying. Maximum number of students reported curiosity (70 subjects, 58%) and social trends (25 subjects, 21%) as the major reasons for initiating hookah smoking. Almost all the subjects (113 subjects, 93%) who smoked hookah reported it was easily available and accessible to them. Majority of the subjects either didn’t know or believed (170 subjects, 51.2%) that hookah is less harmful than cigarette smoking.Hookah usage was found high among the study population. Hence, it is imperative that the health risks posed by hookah smoking are addressed. Actions should be taken to limit hookah smoking and to halt this emerging public health threat.