ASSESSING THE PREVALENCE OF DENTAL CARIES AND ORAL HYGIENE STATUS AMONG BISCUIT FACTORY WORKERS IN MADURAI, TAMILNADU

Abstract

Aim: To assess the oral hygiene status and prevalence of dental caries among the biscuit factory workers in Madurai city.

Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted among 100 biscuit factory workers of whom 56 were males and 44 were females between the age group of 19-50 years. Their oral hygiene status was assessed by using oral hygiene index simplified ( John C Greene and Jack R Vermillion), dental caries was assessed using DMFT index (Henry Klein and Carol E Palmer) and sugar consumption was assessed using sweet score.

Results: The study population composed of 56 males and 44 females. The present study showed that there was mean sweet score of <5 in 0% of subjects (excellent zone), mean score of 10 in 2% of subjects (good zone) and mean score of >15 in 98% of subjects (watch out zone). Mean oral hygiene status was found to be 2.83 which can be interpreted as poor score, mean DMFT was 5.06.

Conclusion: The results show that dental caries is highly prevalent among biscuit factory workers and it increases with sugar consumption. This is due to widespread neglect of oral hygiene and direct exposure to sugar dust.

Keywords: Dental caries, Oral hygiene status, Sugar consumption, biscuit factory workers.