Community & Preventive Dentistry: Course Outline

Introduction to community dentistry and dental public health

• Concepts of health
• Disease and illness and factors affecting these states
• Activities carried out in the field of community dentistry

Oral epidemiology

• Definition
• Uses and principles of epidemiology
• Research designs
• Dental surveys
• Clinical trials
• Screening
• Oral health assessment indices
• Current concepts about etiology
• Natural history and epidemiology of oral diseases and conditions having public health implications
• Assessment of disease risk and predictive tests

Prevention of oral and dental diseases

• Levels of prevention
• Health promotion
• Specific protection
• Dental plaque and its role in the etiology of dental diseases
• Diet nutrition and dental health
• Water fluoridation
• Fluoride supplements
• Professionally and self-applied topical fluorides
• Fissure sealing
• Methods of plaque control
• Principles and strategies of dental health education and promotion
• Infection control
• Protection from radiation and mercury hazards in dental practice

Dental health care delivery system

• The structure and financing of dental care
• Role of dentists
• Dental auxilliaries and general health workers in oral health care
• Dental care of people with special needs including the elderly
• HIV/AIDS patients
• School children
• Principles and elements of primary health care
• Ethical issues in dental care

Behavioral sciences

• Health behavior and its determinates
• Attitudes
• Beliefs and values about health and illness
• Theories of health behavior
• Dentist – patient communication
• Management of stress
• Fear and anxiety in dentistry
• Child psychology and behavior management and modification techniques
• Counseling
• Motivation and compliance

Introduction to Bio statistics

• Types of variables
• Frequency distribution
• Measures of central tendency and variability in data
• Methods of sampling
• Sampling error
• Probability
• Normal distribution
• Confidence interval
• Tests of statistical significance

1. Community Dentistry practical & field assignments

1. Clinical Oral Examination

• Exercise on models and extracted teeth
• Exercise on patients in out patients department
• Examination of institutionalized population like school children

2. Questionnaire / interview study

• Designing a questionnaire
• Pilot testing the questionnaire
• Data coding, processing and analysis

3. Planning and conducting a dental health education (D.H.E.) session

• Designing D.H.E. material
• Planning, conducting and evaluating (D.H.E) sessions

2. Chair side preventive dental procedures

1. Fissure sealing
2. Dietary counseling
3. Plaque disclosing
4. Instructions about Oral Hygiene measures

• Tooth brushing demonstration
• Inter-dental cleaning
• Chemical control of dental plaque

Pre-Clinical Dentistry

The preclinical dentistry includes the following:

• Junior operative techniques/dental material medica
• Junior prosthodontics techniques

A-1 Junior Operative Techniques

• Introduction to dental operative Techniques
• Introduction to instrument used in cavity preparation
• Classification of dental caries
• Principles of Cavity preparation
• Cavity preparation on plaster models/phantom head
• Filling Materials
• Dental material medica​

B-1 Junior Prosthodontics Techniques

1. Introduction of impression and denture materials
2. Laboratory procedures

• Complete dentures
• Acrylic removable partial denture
• Cast partial denture
• Anterior crowns
• Posterior crowns
• Bridges
• Relining / Rebasing procedures
• Repairs
• Soldering and welding techniques