Knowledge of Preventive Measures of Periodontal Diseases in a sample of Secondary Schools Teachers in Awka South Local Government Area, Anambra State

Abstract

Oral health is still a neglected and ignored social issue because most of the people are unaware of the relationship between oral health and systemic diseases. This study focused on knowledge of preventive measures of periodontal diseases among Secondary School Teachers in Awka South Local Government Area, Anambra state. The descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population for the study comprised 850 secondary school teachers in Awka South Local Government Area, Anambra State. Three specific objectives were formulated with three corresponding research questions and two null hypotheses were posed to guide the study. A simple random sampling technique was used to draw the sample of 278 secondary school teachers for the study. The instrument used for data collection was a researcher-designed questionnaire titled Knowledge on Preventive Measures of Periodontal Diseases (KPMPQ).The Split-half (Spearman-Brown Correlation Coefficient) method was used to establish the reliability(internal consistency) of the instrument with reliability coefficient of 0.76. Frequencies and percentages were used to answer the research questions while Pearson’s chi-square was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed that the overall Knowledge on preventive measures of periodontal diseases was moderate (58.4%). Secondary school teachers had low knowledge based on age and gender respectively; 20-35(16.0%), 36 – 45(20.3%), 46 – 65 (12.0%), male (20.2%), and female (28.5%). Also, there is no significant difference on the knowledge on preventive measures of periodontal diseases among secondary schools teachers in Awka south, LGA based on age and gender. The authors recommended that seminars and workshop should be organized by the government to impact knowledge on preventive measure of periodontal disease.