Oral Health Seeking Behaviour among Pregnant Women - A cross sectional survey

Aim: To determine the oral health seeking behaviour among pregnant females visiting in Lady Willingdon Hospital Lahore. Methods: A self-structured questionnaires was filled by the principal investigator in outpatient department of Lady Wallingdon Hospital, Lahore. A total 121 pregnant women were taken as sample in the survey. All pregnant women, regardless of age, financial status, social class or ethnic group were included in this survey. Those who were uncooperative didn't respond or those who were not willing to participate were excluded from study. Each question has two responses yes, no. After data collection it was analysed using SPSS 21. Results: Mean age of the pregnant women was 25.90, SD +/- 3.218. Out of 121, around 62.8% pregnant ladies do not visit dentist during pregnancy while 71.9% ladies didn't even consider it important to visit dentist during pregnancy. A number of reasons attributed for such behaviour of the pregnant women not visiting dentist during pregnancy were found such as following lack of time 56.2%, cost 51.2%, distance 13.2% and lack of transport 14%. Chi square association between access to dentist, and other variables such as working status, education and residence were statistically significant with p value (0.001), (0.000), and (0.004) respectively. Conclusion: Oral health seeking behaviour among pregnant ladies needs to enhance to reduce burden of diseases among the pregnant ladies.