Abstract :
Background: Over the last few decades, oral health care has become a greater priority as people live longer with
serious medical conditions and disabilities and the dentist must be aware of them to provide safe and effective oral care.
Objective: To study the prevalence of medical comorbidities in patients seeking dental treatments. Design: A crosssectional
observational study. Methods: The study was conducted at the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
of Dental College and hospital in north India starting from april 2014 to march 2016 for the presence of medically
compromised conditions. Demographic data of the patients was also collected to determine the frequency of
comorbidities that may affect the dental patients older than 30 years of age. Results: A total of 7216 patients visited the
oral surgery OPD during the period of april 2014 to march 2016. 5040 patients aged 30 years and above were included
in the study. From a total of 5040 patients, 1336 patients (26.5%) were having comorbidities. The age of patients ranged
from 30 to 80 years with the mean age ± SD of 45.2 ± 11.6 years. The majority of them (54%) were in the 4th to 6th
decades of life. There were 694 male patients (51.95%) and 642 female patients (48.05%). In this study, hypertension
was the most prevalent comorbidity accounting for 13.8% of total patients followed by diabetes mellitus( 8.29%) and
ischaemic heart disease which accounted for 7.28%.Within the strata of medically compromised individuals , prevalence
of hypertension was recorded as high as 52.02 %, followed by diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular disease which has
prevalence of 31.29% and 24.27% respectively. Conclusion: It is very important for the attending clinicians to have an
exact knowl¬edge of the patient’s medical conditions to provide safe and effective dental treatment.
Keyword :
Dental patients, Hypertension, Medical comorbidities.