ABSTRACT
Objective: To measure conceptual oral health knowledge among school teachers using comprehensive
measure of oral health knowledge (CMOHK) instrument. Materials and Methods: A total of 240 school teachers drawn through cluster random sampling from across
Sullia taluk. Conceptual knowledge was assessed using Comprehensive measure of oral
health knowledge questionnaire. Oral health status was recorded on a World Health
Organization oral health assessment Proforma. Results: Overall distribution of CMOHK scores revealed that 106(44%) subjects had good conceptual
oral health knowledge, 81(33.7%) subjects had fair and 53(22%) subjects were categorized
under poor conceptual knowledge respectively. Statistically significant difference
was observed for mean scores for conceptual knowledge in relation to gender (12.8v/s
15.3), in terms of type of school teachers (14.4 v/s 11.2) and in relation to age
of the subjects. Primary school teachers exhibited a consistently better CMOHK scores
0.003(0.001-0.011) compared to their high school counterparts 0.003(0.001-0.012).
Conclusion: The mean CMOHK score of this group was 12.5±1.3 and is considered to be fair. There
is an inverse association between age, educational levels and income in relation to
CMOHK scores.
Key words:
Oral health knowledge - oral health literacy - oral health status - school teachers
