A CROSS SECTIONAL STUDY ON TOBACCO USERS AMONG THE MIDDLE CLASS SEMI URBAN POPULATION OF A DISTRICT IN TAMILNADU

Background: Tobacco is in legal use everywhere in the world, although it causes far more deaths than all other psychoactive substances combined. India's tobacco problem is very complex, with a large use of a variety of smoking forms and an array of smokeless tobacco products. Hence; the present study was undertaken for assessing the Tobacco users among the middle class semi urban population of a district in Tamil Nadu. Materials & methods: The records of 14000 patients who were seen during dental examination at the tobacco clinic of the dental college, dental camps and the tribal centre were evaluated for thorough case history and clinical examination findings. In this group, five hundred and twenty patients were identified as tobacco users.In this nearly 153(38.6 %) used smokeless tobaccos and 235(59.3 %)used smoking tobaccos. In this 342(86.3%)were Males and 54(13.6%) were females. A nicotine detecting breath analyzer was also used for detecting the percentage of carbon monoxide in their expired breath and blood. Results: A total of 14000 patients records were examined and the details were put in a excel sheet and then calculated.There were 342(86.3%) Males and 54(13.6%) Females were tobacco users. More number of tobacco users were from the age category (51-60) 115 (29.0%).And less number of tobacco users were at the age(10-20) 6 (1.5 %). Frequency of tobacco users were, 121 of them used tobacco for 2 to 3 times a day, and 104 used daily 1 packet per day. Conclusion: Earlier age of onset of habits and low income and lack of education has been analysed as a significant predictor of risk among this population. The oral health is jeopardized among the tobacco users.