Impact of Cultural Beliefs and Lifestyle on Periodontal Health in North Indian Population

Objectives: Non-communicable chronic diseases continue to dominate in lower and middle income countries. Most programs are evolving and building oral health policies towards effective control of risks to oral health, based on the common risk factors approach. More than 90% Indian population suffers from some form of periodontal diseases. The objective was to assess the association between Oral health behaviour, Cultural and lifestyle factors on periodontal health of North Indian Population
Methods: The present cross sectional study carried out on the subjects of age group 20–50 years attending the dental outreach Mobile Dental Clinics in Delhi. The self administered, structured and validated close end questionnaire in local language was distributed among 500 subjects. The questionnaire was divided into two sections; first examined sociodemographic details, second section on understanding cultural beliefs and lifestyle practices. Following this clinical examination for periodontal status was done by recording loss of attachment scores using community periodontal index. The data was stored in the excel sheet and subjected to statistical analysis by appropriate statistical test using SPSS software.
Results: Out of 500 subjects, 286 females and 214 males (mean age 42 years) participated in the study. After adjusting for all the confounding variables in multivariate logistic regression analysis, the variables that showed an significantly association with periodontitis were age, location, marital status, smoking, hours of sleep per night, brushing habits, cultural beliefs physical activity, and overall poor lifestyles.
Conclusions: Chronic periodontitis was observed higher among subjects with poor lifestyle factors and deep cultural beliefs. Hence in order to address subjects with chronic periodontitis comprehensively and improve treatment outcomes; health promotional strategies should engage in active modification of lifestyle as well as cultural beliefs. Dental healthcare professionals need to be sensitized and oriented about the broader determinants and role of patient’s involvement in self care by promoting healthy lifestyles.