Knowledge About Enamel Defects Amongst Undergraduate Students A Cross-Sectional Survey

Abstract

AIM: This study aims to evaluate the knowledge about enamel defects among dental students.

BACKGROUND: Enamel defects are disturbances in the quantity or quality of enamel caused by damage or disruption to the enamel organ during amelogenesis of calcified tissue that covers the whole anatomic crown of the tooth.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is a questionnaire based cross sectional study conducted among UG students in a private dental college. Random sampling is used to minimize the sampling bias . A questionnaire consisting of  10 questions about developmental enamel defects were circulated through the online survey mode undergraduates. The collected data were analysed using spss software version 23.

RESULTS: In this present study, first year undergraduate students were more aware of enamel defects than second, third, and fourth year students. According to this study, 43.14% of first year students were aware of enamel hypomineralization followed by 2.94% of second year students, 13.73% of third year students and 8.82% of final year students. The Pearson chi-square test used to determine the relationship between year of study  and the number of respondents who were aware of hypomineralization enamel and the p value is 0.016, (p <0.05), hence it is statistically significant.

CONCLUSION: The knowledge and awareness of enamel defects among undergraduate dental students were assessed in this study and it was found that first year undergraduate students were more aware of enamel defects than second, third, and fourth year students.