Awareness about the association between periodontal health and diabetes mellitus among diabetes patients

In our study; It was aimed to examine the awareness of diabetic patients in the Trabzon region on the reciprocal relationship between diabetes and periodontal status and to evaluate their practices related to oral health. It is thought that determining the awareness level of diabetic patients can give physicians a different perspective in providing patients with the education they need about the relationship between periodontal status and diabetes. The research was carried out within the Karadeniz Technical University Faculty of Dentistry Department of Periodontology and Karadeniz Technical University Faculty of Medicine Department of Endocrine between 2020 and 2021. The research was carried out with 250 patients who were followed up with the diagnosis of type 1 or type 2 diabetes mellitus in the Department of Endocrine, Faculty of Medicine, Karadeniz Technical University. The volunteer patients participating in the study were asked to fill in a 16-question questionnaire form. In the preparation of the questions in the questionnaire, previous studies on this subject in different societies were used. In 11 questions in the first sections of the questionnaire form, sociodemographic characteristics of the participants such as gender, age, education level; their medical conditions such as diabetes type, medications they used, family history of the disease; oral hygiene practices such as the frequency of going to the dentist, tooth brushing habits and the use of dental floss were evaluated. In the next section of the questionnaire form, about the reciprocal relationship between diabetes mellitus and periodontal status four questions regarding the awareness of diabetic patients were included. The questions in this section were evaluated with three options: "yes, no and don't know". In the last section, it was questioned from which sources of information diabetes patients obtained their information about diabetes. As a result of our study, it was found that the awareness of diabetic participants on the reciprocal relationship between periodontal status and diabetes was quite weak.