Oral health knowledge, attitude, practices and oral hygiene status of factory workers

Aim: To assess the knowledge, attitude, practices and oral hygiene status of match-box factoryworkers in Gudiyatham taluk of Vellore District, Tamil Nadu. Materials and Methods: The survey was conducted among the match-box factory workers inGudiyatham taluk of Vellore district. Following the pilot study, the sample size of 948 match-box factoryworkers was needed for this study. The cluster sampling methodology was used to select the samples. Theclusters (match-box factories) were randomly selected one after the other to get the required sample size.The sources of data were primary, which consisted of a clinical examination to assess the level of oralhygiene (Oral Hygiene Index-Simplified) and a questionnaire on oral health knowledge, attitude andpractices. Results: 42.9% perceived the appearance of their teeth to be good. 48.3% visited a dentist only whenthere is pain / discomfort. 82% stated that they brush their teeth once daily and around 16% have thehabit of consuming tobacco in some form. Among the study subjects 74.7% had fair oral hygiene, 24.9%had good oral hygiene and 0.4% had poor oral hygiene. Conclusion: There is a need for improvement in the oral health knowledge, attitude, practices amongthe match-box factory workers which could be brought about with the help of health education by dentistand primary health care workers. It has also been observed that the level of oral hygiene was fair amongmajority of the match-box factory workers.