Vivek Narayan* and M Ovia
Oral medicine is a field of dentistry which involves diagnosis and treatment of disorders / conditions affecting the oral and maxillofacial regions that includes diseases of oral mucosa, disorders of orofacial region, salivary gland and orofacial pain. History taking is necessary for establishing the diagnosis of the patient’s chief complaint and assessing the influence of the patient’s systemic health on the patient's oral health. The aim of the study is to determine the knowledge, attitude and perception of Oral Medicine among BDS students. The survey was conducted in a private dental institute. 100 clinical BDS students participated in the study which contained a random number of III, IV & intern BDS students. I & II year BDS students were excluded from the study. The questionnaire was formulated using Google forms & distributed to the BDS students via Whatsapp and datas was entered in MS Excel spreadsheet. The data from the Excel spreadsheet was transferred to SPSS software version 23.0 for analysis. Chi square tests were employed to find the association between different variables. The statistical significance was set at 5 %. The study showed a female predilection. The maximum responses were from IV year students followed by III year students and finally by the Interns. All students think case history taking is important. Majority of the 4th year students agree that both extraoral and intraoral examination is important in making a diagnosis. Most of the students encounter pigmented lesions in their daily clinical practice. All the students had difficulty in diagnosing a case while they all were able to differentiate the oral lesion belonging to the same category. 26 % III yrs & 23 % IVth yrs prefer biopsy when they fail to provide a provisional diagnosis while 24 % of the IVth yrs have an idea of sending Biopsy for a patient irrespective of any malignant change. Almost all the Interns (11 %) prefer referring patients with oral mucosal lesions to a specialist, remaining all the students prefer referring them to an oral medicine clinic. Final year BDS students' responses show up to be satisfactory in comparison with III year & Interns as they have a better understanding towards Oral medicine and importance of case history taking.
