Perception of diet counseling among dental students in India

Introduction:
Nutrition has always been recognized as an integral part of oral health. However, most dentists do not incorporate diet counseling in routine dental practice. The current study was set to evaluate the knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) on diet counseling among dental house surgeons.


Materials and Methods:
Interns from four different colleges (under different universities) spread across the four states of South India were selected. Of them, 220 interns who completed the questionnaires were chosen for final analysis.


Results:
Of the subjects, 75% agreed that nutrition was a vital component of total health care. However, only 42% of the subjects reported that they had received adequate training in diet counseling. Most of the subjects agreed that diet counseling needed to be emphasized in dental education and only 37% of the subjects expressed their confidence in rendering diet counseling to their patients.


Conclusions:
Students possessed not only good knowledge but also a positive attitude toward diet counseling. Lack of confidence and apprehension about financial reimbursement were two main reasons cited as obstacles for the incorporation of diet counseling in routine clinical practice.