Letter to the Editor Regarding Prevalence of Periodontal Disease and Characterization of its Extent and Severity in An Adult Population: An Observational Study

Dear Editor,

This is regarding the research article titled-“Prevalence of Periodontal Disease and Characterization of its Extent and Severity in an Adult Population – An Observational Study” by Kalpak Prafulla Peter et al., 2014 Dec, Vol-8(12): ZC04-ZC07 [1] in Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research. The authors have skilfully described the sequences of the study. They have conducted the study through self administered proforma to study the demographic details, lifestyle characteristics, medical history, oral hygiene measures and periodontal health status. They randomly picked the patients and the oral examination was done by single periodontist. They have included the patients of or above 30 years having at least 20 natural teeth without any history of recent periodontal treatment.

But they have not cited the exclusion criteria. There is no clarification of the inclusion or exclusion of the patients of systemic disease, neurological diseases, mentally challenged individuals or pregnant women as several researches have proved the role of these factors in causing or aggravating periodontal diseases [2–5]. Socioeconomic status (SES) is one of the most important social determinants of health and disease which is categorised based on the Kuppuswamy’s scale [6]. The present study do not describe the periodontal status based on the socioeconomic condition.

Financial or Other Competing Interests

None.

Author’s Response

Response to the letter to the editor regarding the article entitled Prevalence of Periodontal Disease and Characterization of its Extent and Severity in an Adult Population – An Observational Study. In response to the above said letter the authors of the present article wish to mention that the aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of periodontal disease and to further characterize the extent and severity of the disease. This article focuses on describing the periodontal status of study population comprehensively and to thoroughly characterize their periodontal disease status. The authors are aware of the confounding effect of various factors on periodontal status. Therefore, all the demographic details of the individuals enrolled in this study were recorded and have been mentioned in the results [Table/Fig-1].

[Table/Fig-1]:

Overview of study population [1]

Variable	Number	Percentage	Total
Sex
Male	357	51	700
Female	343	49
Income
Lower	21	3
Middle	301	43	700
Upper middle	294	42
High	84	12
Religion
Hindu	455	65
Muslim	133	19
Buddhist	56	8	700
Christian	21	3
Jain	14	2
Sikh	21	3
Education
Illiterate	56	8
Secondary School	63	9	700
Higher Secondary	357	51
Graduate	224	32
Tobacco chewing
Yes	168	24.0	700
No	532	76.0
Smoking Status
Current Smoker	91	13
Former Smoker	133	19	700
Never Smoker	476	68
Diet
Vegetarian	423	60.4	700
Non-Vegetarian	277	39.6
Frequency of Brushing
Once a day	528	75
Twice a day	148	21.1	700
None	27	3.9

The present study is an observational study and does not aim to compare the periodontal status of individuals within the strata of population. Therefore, the statistical analysis of demographic details has not been described in the article although it has been carried out. However, the article describes the periodontal status in different strata of population like age, sex, income, religion, educational status, income, diet and frequency of dental visits. Hope the above justification would resolve the raised issues.

Regards

Dr. Kalpak Peter