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Context: The police personnel resort to tobacco-associated habits often as a stress buster and consider the nicotine rush will settle their nerves so that they can focus better on their work. Recently, some nongovernmental organizations have taken a note of this and carried out health checkup camps for the police personnel in the city of Mumbai, but similar awareness for oral and dental health is still largely missing. Aim: The present study was carried out with the primary aim to determine the prevalence of tobacco-associated habits and oral lesions in the police personnel from Greater Mumbai. Materials and Methods: All the police personnel included in the study were subjected to a detailed case history elicitation and examination procedure after obtaining their informed written consent. Special stress was given in eliciting history of tobacco-associated habits while care was taken to diagnose tobacco-associated oral lesions such as tobacco pouch keratosis, preleukoplakia, leukoplakia, oral submucous fibrosis, carcinomatous, and other lesions. The data so collected were tabulated and sent for statistical analysis, and objective conclusions were drawn. Results: Use of tobacco with lime was found to be the most common habit present in the police personnel (34.0%), whereas the least common habit found was betel nut chewing (3.9%). In a sample size of 2388 police personnel included in the study, the overall prevalence of leukoplakia was found to be 11.12% with homogenous leukoplakia being the most common sub-type encountered (96.24%) with the second most common subtype encountered being speckled leukoplakia accounting for 2.26% of the cases reported. Conclusion: The results of the present study indicated tobacco-associated habits to be very common in the police personnel from Greater Mumbai which emphasized specific efforts to be made to reduce tobacco usage by police personnel on active duty.
Nayyar et al. (Sun,) studied this question.