Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Dental Students Regarding Denture Adhesives A Survey Based Analysis

The aim of the study was to determine the knowledge, attitude and practise of dental students regarding denture adhesives. Denture adhesive improves retention, decreases tissue discomfort, prevents strangulation of mucosal blood supply, and reduces the frequency of adjustments even in a well-fitting denture. Denture wearers sometimes wear denture adhesive to enhance the retention of their prosthesis. Denture adhesive is likely to be favorable and the retention of the denture becomes better with the usage of denture adhesive. This was a questionnaire based study. The study setting was a University setting. A pre-tested questionnaire with 8 questions was formulated for the collection of information. They were distributed to 100 dental students at a private dental institution and their answers were recorded. Excel Tabulation was done. Results were represented in the form of pie charts. In this study, all the dental students were aware of the denture adhesives. 92% of them have used denture adhesives to improve the retention of the denture. Denture adhesive was more commonly used for complete dentures(88%). Majority of the students believed that patients felt happy after the usage of denture adhesives. From the present study, we can conclude that the dental students had comparatively better understanding and knowledge about the principles of denture adhesives. But the knowledge about different forms of denture adhesives and awareness about the complications that might arise after long term usage of denture adhesives were very less, so better training and work experience can help them to understand about the advancements and the significance of denture adhesives.