Oral Health Status and Normative Needs of College Students in Mangalore, Karnataka

Introduction: Community-oriented oral health promotion programmes can be efficiently targeted by assessing the oral health status comprehensively. Aim: To investigate oral health status and normative needs of college students in Mangalore, Karnataka. Materials and Methods: A descriptive study was done among 720, 18–20-year-old students attending degree colleges in Mangalore using multi-stage random sampling. Oral health status was recorded as per World Health Organization oral health assessment form. The data were coded and analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 11.5 version software. Results: Overall dental caries prevalence accounted to 68.1%, with a mean Decayed, Missed and Filled teeth (DMFT) of 1.94 [males had higher DMFT score (2.06) than females (1.82)], and majority of the students required one surface restoration. Periodontal status of the students as measured by Community Periodontal Index (CPI) showed that majority of the study participants (34.9%) had calculus necessitating the need for oral prophylaxis. Conclusion: Oral health status of the age groups not traditionally studied gives the complete picture of the oral disease burden, indicating the need of oral heath preventive measures among college students in India