Puja Hazari, Harsh Mahajan, Naveen S Yadav, Pragya Saran, Nimisha Kakkad, Vijayta Sharva

ABSTRACT

Context: India is known as country of villages. These villagers are impoverished of good oral health care due to the lack of qualified doctors. This survey was conducted to analyse attitude of dental students towards rural dental practice and factors ceasing them from doing so. Aim: To assess the attitude of dental students towards rural practice. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among the interns and postgraduate of dental colleges of Madhya Pradesh. The questionaire comprised of 21 questions. Statistical analysis was carried out using descriptive statistics in SPSS software, version 20.0. Chi-square test and unpaired t-test was used. Result: In this survey total 722 students participated. Out of which 82% students would like to work in rural areas after completion of their graduation, 87% agreed that rural dental practice has a high level of autonomy associated with responsibility & multitasking. 84.8% people will choose rural practice because they want to serve the community. No statistically significant difference was observed in the attitude of undergraduates and postgraduates. Conclusion: Three conclusions can be drawn from this cross-sectional study. Firstly, the students showed positive attitude in providing oral health care to deprived rural patients. Secondly, the students have shown reluctance to work in the rural areas because of lack of clinical and infrastructural facilities, no social life, lack of good schools for their wards. Third, the government should offer jobs to the dental students in rural areas with good incentive packages and should provide clinical and infrastructural facilities.