Aim & Background: To evaluate the dental health literacy among patients visiting saveetha dental hospital. Dental health literacy is now seen as a primary determinant of oral health which may prevent an individual‘s understanding of available oral health information and utilization of oral health services. Methodology: A survey was conducted with a pre formed questionnaire from REALD 30 and circulated among the out patients visiting a private institute in Chennai. The questionnaire consists of 30 words which help to evaluate dental health literacy. The data was tabulated. SPSS by IBM was used to analyze the data. The Chi-Square test was used as a statistical test. The age and gender of the study population was cross tabulated and p-value was analyzed. Results: From the collected data we find that the most common age group of the survey was from 20 - 30 years of age. We see that most of them were familiar with the common words like sugar, smoking, brush, genetics, braces like words of REALD 30 but some of the other words like malocclusion, extraction, enamel, denture were difficult to identify and pronunciation of the words. Conclusion: There was a fair amount of knowledge among the out patients visiting Saveetha Dental Hospital. Still there is a need for dental health literacy among the common population of chennai.

Dental Literacy, Pulp, REALD 30, Sugar, Smoking, Innovative Analysis