Opinions, knowledge and strategy towards occlusal dental caries diagnosis and its management among the undergraduate dental students in Tamil Nadu

Objective: The aim of the study was to assess the occlusal caries diagnosis and treatment strategies adopted by undergraduate dental students in dental colleges in Tamil Nadu, India. Methods: Randomly selected 7 dental institutions in Tamil Nadu state India were sent a pre-tested 12 items questionnaire designed to assess the opinion and strategy adopted for occlusal dental caries diagnosis and its management. Total of 420 undergraduate dental students whom have finished clinical postings in department of conservative dentistry and endodontics participated in the study. Chi square tests employed to test for the relationship between various years of students to their answers. Results: The results of this study show that there is disparity among the strategies adopted between third, fourth year and internship students for diagnosis and treatment for dental caries. More number of fourth year and intern students answered correctly for the questions, which is to be expected as they have greater amount of clinical exposure than third year students. Conclusions: The results of this study show gap in caries education in our system, this is mainly because of relying on older and outdated method of caries detection and classification. Management strategy of caries lesion is also greatly towards only restoration of tooth, with very little emphasize on either caries risk assessment or remineralization strategy.