Self-Care Remedies Used to Relive Dental Pain among Sudanese Patients at Omdurman Military Dental Hospital in 2020

ABSTRACT


INTRODUCTION
Self-medication and self remedies are part of the larger frame of self-care and can be defined as obtaining and consuming drugs and materials without the advice of a physician, either for diagnosis or treatment.Self-medication has become quite common in developed as well as developing countries (1).In Sudan, studies have shown that individual's aged18-34 reported much higher experiences of toothache than those Corresponding Author: Dalia Ahmed Gasm El Seed

*Cite this Article: Dalia Ahmed Gasm El Seed, Abazer Alrdi Balla Alrdi, Elaf Abdalmoniem Hussain Mohamed, Eman Ibrahim Mohammed Albadri (2023). Self-Care Remedies Used to Relive Dental Pain among Sudanese Patients at Omdurman Military Dental Hospital in 2020. International Journal of Clinical Science and Medical Research, 3(12), 232-236
aged 75 or over.Among school children, 12% had experienced toothache before the age of five and 32% by the age of 12. Sometimes when individuals are facing barriers to receiving oral health care, especially in low-income rural areas, the residents are either forced or choose to use alternative strategies, forgo treatment and/or use self-care remedies for relieving dental pain.Self-care is one of the means by which people without access to professional care can actively engage in managing their oral health problems (2).It has been identified in the literature.That has resulted in misuse of OTC ( Over -The -Counter )products through overuse, using several drugs concurrently, or using home remedies to treat potentially serious diseases, which have resulted in misdiagnosis or masking of serious medical conditions.Dentists should be aware that patients with dental pain often use self-care remedies or some drug on their own to resolve their pain (3).The rate of people consuming self-care remedies to relieve dental pain is increasing particularly in Sudan.It is widely noted that many Sudanese use some traditional methods, including self-care remedies to relieve dental pain.And it has a severe effect on their oral health it can cause mucosal burn ,some can cause pulp necrosis and the use of over the counter drugs may cause drug resistant which now become a huge public health problems .(4)Self-medication is a common practice in developing countries, but little is known about its determinants, despite of its importance, the usage of self-medication in Sudan is not considered enough in the literature.It was distressing to find that every other patient attending the dental department for treatment is currently consuming selfmedication.The study aims to identify the dental selfremedies used by people in Omdurman Military Dental Hospital and their impact on oral health .It's also highlights the reasons behind the use of this self-treatment in order to inform patients counseling about the hazards of selfremedies.Moreover, professional organizations must create public awareness.

METHODS
This observational descriptive cross sectional hospital based was done by convenience methods among 300 patients who agreed to participate in the study during the study period at the Omdurman Military Dental Hospital, Sudan.Data was collected by a modified self-administrated questionnaire that included two sections: Section A: socio-demographics of the participants.Section B: remedy\remedies they used and why.Respondents were then asked about the side effect of remedies.(2,5).The data was analyzed with the aid of Microsoft Excel software and SPSS version 23.Static significant test: chi square test for categorical variables.Results were presented in the form of tables, figures, and texts.

RESULTS
A total of 300 participants were included in this study.56% were males, and 44% were female.The majority of the patients were in the range of 32-51 years old.Of the total patients, 53.3% had a university level of education, 34.3 % were post graduate and 12% had a secondary level of education.64% of the patients in the present study used the remedies to stop the pain.The majority of the patients 16.33% used cloves as self-care remedies to relieve their dental pain.Regarding the source of knowledge about the use of remedies, 53.67% of the patients select self-care remedies according to their self-opinion.The majority of the patients 35% used selfremedies because of the high cost, self-apprehensive and dental phobia.58% of the patients did not know about the side effects of the self-care remedies.The majority of the participants don't suffer from side effects 41.67% and 35% of them will reuse remedies again despite that 49.67% thought that the remedies did not help in relieving pain.

DISCUSSION
A toothache-described as any pain, soreness, or ache in or around a tooth-can be a frustrating and unpleasant experience.In addition to a sharp or dull pain, your tooth may be sensitive to temperature or painful when chewing or biting.
In order to get to the bottom of your tooth pain, your doctor will consider several potential diagnoses based on your medical history, dental exam, and sometimes an imaging test, usually an X-ray (6).Dental pain is not relieved by over-the-counter medications or home remedies.Even when it is relieved, a dental evaluation can be beneficial, as the pain could be something that can be fixed more easily when treated earlier (6).
Self remedies and medication are obtained and consumed without the advice of a doctor which could result in missed diagnosis and delays of appropriate effective treatments (7).
The results of this study showed that the majority of patients used the remedies to stop the pain, this is in agreement with Hashmi et al, who reported that most of the participants used self-care remedies for relieving their dental pain (8).This study demonstrated that the most frequently used items for self -remedies were cloves, which is in agreement with Hashmi et al and Mohammed Aljezooli et al ( 2,8).Different sources of information that influence the patients for the usage of self-remedies are found , in our study more than half of the patients select self-medication according to their self-opinion .This result is not in agreement with Hashmi et al, study in which the data clearly depicts that the major contributing factors are parents advice (12%) and pharmacists (15%) (8).
Our findings showed that the majority of the patients used self-remedies because of the high cost of dental treatment, self-apprehensive and dental phobia.This disagreement with the findings of Mohammed  (10).
A study done by AlQahtani et al found that the majority of the patients (46%) had obtained higher education; the most common factor that triggered self-medication practices was toothache (56.5%), while the main reasons for selfmedication were both a lack of time to visit a dental clinic (37.6%) and the perception that dental ailments were not serious health issues (36.8%)(11).
In the present study, the majority of the participants don't suffer from the side effects of the remedies and will reuse them again, despite that (49.67%) of them thought that the remedies did not help in relieving pain.58% of participants stated that they did not know about the side effects of using those self-care remedies.This indicated a low level of awareness about the risk of oral health problems among the study population.
Increase awareness about self-remedies through adequate health education on the use and misuse of self-remedies.

Figure 6 :
Figure 6: The reuse of the remedies

The help of the remedies in relive pain
(9)san Aljezooli et al.,who found that the potentiating factors for this usage included personal preference (47.4%), self-apprehension (23.7%), high costs, and lack of dental health services (22.4% and 5.2% , respectively)(2).Also not in agreement with Gowdar et al result that lack of time (44.6%) is the main reason for selfmedication(9).A Study done by Qaiser Ali Baig, Danish Muzaffar et al showed various reasons: cost and expenditure are in lower class, laziness and lack of time in middle while dental phobia in upper class is the main reason of self medications A wide variety of self-care remedies are used by Sudanese residing in Military Dental Hospital, with cloves being the most commonly used.This usage is attributed to public preference, self-apprehension, high costs and lack of dental health services.