Impact of Social Media on Dental Treatment Choices among Medical and Nonmedical Graduates in Nellore City: A Cross-sectional Survey

Background: Social media has become an integral part of modern life and has great potential in marketing, including dentistry.Social media also helps to attract a diverse group of people to our day-to-day activities, which might also influence oral health.Aim: To assess the impact of social media on dental treatment choices among the medical and nonmedical graduate students of Nellore city. Materials and methods:The cross-sectional study was conducted to assess the impact of social media on dental treatment choices among the medical and non-medical graduate students of Nellore city.The present cross-sectional web-based survey was conducted using the Google Survey tool.The questionnaire covers demographic data, reasons for using social media, and the ways in which social media has an impact on their dental treatment choices.SPSS 21 was the chosen software for analyzing both descriptive and inferential statistics.Results: The majority of the participants (66%) reported Instagram to be the most used app.Significantly, a greater number of participants (74.4%) use social media as a source of oral health information.The majority (75.1%) have improved their oral health due to social media.Conclusion: A higher proportion of the participants claimed that social media plays an important role regarding dental treatment choices.