Archives

Introduction: Oral cancer, if detected and treated early can result in decreased mortality, prolonged life and improved quality of life of a person. The medical practitioners being the first personnel to come in contact with patients, their knowledge about oral cancer becomes of utmost importance.

Objective: For assessing the knowledge, opinions and practices about oral cancer among medical practitioners of eastern Nepal.

Materials and Method: A 35 itemed self-administered questionnaires were filled for a cross-sectional study by each participating medical practitioner. Analysis was done using SPSS version 11.5. Results were summarised using frequency distribution tables and graphical methods.

Result: One hundred and ninety six medical practitioners participated in the study, male (74%) and female (26%), aged 20 to 59 years. Squamous cell carcinoma (83.2%) was found to be the most common form of oral cancer, primarily in tongue excluding lip (37.8%), majorly diagnosed in patient aged >40 years (43.9%). Most participants answered correctly about the real risk factor, with use of tobacco (96.4%) and 67.9% were misinformed about obesity as real risk factor. About 65% medical practitioners had average knowledge on oral cancer. In grading of practice regarding history taking 70.9% scored high and 7.1% were graded as low. About 76.6% were interested in attending educational course on oral cancer.

Conclusion: The medical practitioners of eastern Nepal have average knowledge about oral cancer. High percentage of medical practitioners practices comprehensive history taking but practice setting showed significant relationships.

Knowledge; medical practitioners; opinion; oral cancer; practices.