Dr. Bijay Tamang

Nepal National Oral Health ‘Pathfinder’ Survey 2004 FINAL REPORT       Dr. Robert Yee Consultant to Oral Health Focal Point Director of United Mission to Nepal Oral Health Programme Kathmandu , Nepal Dr. Praveen Mishra Chief Consultant Oral Health Focal Point Management Division, DOHS Ministry of Health Kathmandu , Nepal Recommended citation:   Yee R, Mishra P.   Nepal National Oral Health ‘Pathfinder’ Survey 2004.   Kathmandu , Nepal : Oral Health Focal Point, Ministry of Health, HMG Nepal , 2004   NEPAL NATIONAL ORAL HEALTH ‘PATHFINDER’ SURVEY 2004 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY A Nepal national oral health ‘pathfinder’ survey was conducted between April 26 and August 20, 2004 .   The survey is an essential activity of the Nepal National Oral Health Policy and National Strategic Plan for Oral Health for Nepal and is necessary for monitoring and evaluation of the impact o...

Dental caries is one of the most prevalent childhood diseases in Nepal, especially in the young children. Most of the dental caries are not treated because of the lack of knowledge or unavailability of the services which leads to pain and eventually leads to tooth loss. This has bad impact on the quality of life of school children and further when they become adults.

At present, the main reasons for not visiting a dentists on a regular basis are due to low felt or perceived needs prior to the experience of pain and the cost of dental treatment. Providing the people with the basic emergency treatment such as extraction of carious and problematic teeth and restoration of possible teeth with filling material will help solve the problem to some extent. The main oral health related problems occur because of the change in the earlier raw diet to a more refined sticky diet of today. Besides this, the lack of awareness and diagnosis at an early stage along with early treatment are the main reasons behind the problem reaching an even worse scenario.