Periodontal health status and treatment needs among building construction workers in Chennai, India

Objectives: Periodontal disease is universally prevalent and an important public health problem. Poor life style and negative psychosocial condition has been said to play an important role in the aetiology of adult periodontitis. Construction workers are characterized by insecurity of wages and poor life style. Dental extractions form a major constituent of therapeutic measures in these lower socio economic populations, hence an attempt has been made to assess the periodontal health status and treatment needs among them. Methods: A cross sectional study, involving 321 construction workers using a cluster sampling technique was employed and the study was conducted in four construction companies selected by simple random sampling. Data were entered in Microsoft Excel spread sheet and analyzed using Statical package of social science software. Pearson’s chi square and Kruskal Wallis test were used for statistical analysis. Results: The prevalence of periodontal disease among the study subjects was 95.4%. Bleeding and calculus was most frequently observed in the age groups 20 -29 years, whereas the percentage of individuals with shallow and deep pockets was greater in the age groups 35-54 years. Among the study subjects 53.6% required scaling 23.4% required oral hygiene instructions, 18.7% required complex periodontal treatment. PISSN