title: Oral health related knowledge, attitude and practices among the primary health care workers of a district in India.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assess the knowledge, attitude, and practices of the primary health care workers in our country.
  
  
  METHODS
  Data was gathered by means of a closed-ended questionnaire form. A total of 30 primary health centers (PHCs) and 60 subcenters (SCs) were included in the study. Frequency distribution was used together with Chi-square tests and analysis of variance (ANOVA) in this study. A P value of < 0.05 was considered significant.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Only 40% of the primary health care workers knew that dental caries is multifactorial, majority of them could not identify the symptoms of gum diseases, a meager number of the primary health care workers (28%) knew about the oral health aspects of a pregnant lady, and with the exception of doctors, the other health care workers were not sure of the etiology of oral cancer.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  About one-tenth of the primary care workers had high knowledge regarding oral health, only one-tenth of them had highly favorable oral health attitudes, and 9% of them had highly favorable oral health practices.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health Dentistry, Kamineni Institute of Dental Sciences, Nalgonda District, Vikarabad, India.
authors.forename: Praveen Haricharan
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Bhoopathi
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health Dentistry, Sri Sai College of Dental Surgery, Vikarabad, India.
authors.forename: Peddi Reddy Parthasarthi
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Reddy
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health Dentistry, MNR Dental College, Andhra Pradesh, India.
authors.forename: Arpitha
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kotha
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health Dentistry, Sri Sai College of Dental Surgery, Vikarabad, India.
authors.forename: Monica
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mancherla
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health Dentistry, Sri Sai College of Dental Surgery, Vikarabad, India.
authors.forename: Prathibha
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Boinapalli
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric and Preventive Dentistry, Sri Venkata Sai Institute of Dental Sciences, Mahabubnagar, Telangana, India.
authors.forename: Amit
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Samba
keywords: Knowledge attitude practice study; oral health; primary health care