Assessment of oral health attitudes and behavior among students of Kuwait University Health Sciences Center

Abstract

Aim:The aims of this study were to assess attitudes and behavior of oral health maintenance among students in four faculties (Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmacy, and Allied Health) and to compare oral health attitudes and behavior of all students at Kuwait University Health Sciences Center (KUHSC) based on their academic level.Materials and Methods:Students enrolled in the Faculties of Dentistry, Medicine, Pharmacy, and Allied Health at KUHSC were evaluated regarding their oral health attitudes and behavior by an e-mail invitation with a link to the Hiroshima University Dental Behavior Inventory survey that was sent to all 1802 students with Kuwait University Health Sciences Center e-mail addresses. The data were analyzed for frequency distributions, and differences among the groups were assessed using the Mann–Whitney U test, Chi-square test, and Kruskal–Wallis test. P values less than 0.05 were considered to be statistically significant (P < 0.05).Results:The results of this study indicated that dental students achieved better oral health attitudes and behavior than that of their nondental professional fellow students (P < 0.05). Students in advanced academic levels and female students demonstrated better oral health attitudes and behavior.Conclusion:Dental students and students who were in advanced levels of their training along with female students demonstrated better oral health practices and perceptions than students in lower academic levels and male students, respectively. Additional studies for investigating the effectiveness and identifying areas requiring modification within the dental curriculum at KUHSC may be warranted.

Oral Health Attitudes among Preclinical and Clinical Dental Students in Germany

“…Observing all items of the current study and the HU-DBI score of both participating groups, preclinical and clinical dental students in Germany reflected overall better oral health attitudes and behaviour than their colleagues in European, Middle-Eastern and Asian countries [4,10,11,17,18,31]. Indeed, Germany's oral health system has proven to be one of the most efficient worldwide [39].…”

“…The Hiroshima University-Dental Behavioural Inventory (HU-DBI) was established by Kawamura to examine dental health behaviour, perceptions and attitudes. It has already been translated from Japanese into German and multiple other languages for cross-cultural comparisons [17,20,21]. Results of these translated versions, including the German translation, have been reported previously and exhibited good validity and reliability [20].…”

“…Nevertheless, the preclinical students presented a slightly higher, yet statistically insignificant, HU-DBI mean score than the clinical participants. This discrepancy with multiple studies performed worldwide [4,[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] suggests an insignificant effect of the students' preclinical-clinical transition and their required awareness as role models or educators to their patients. Furthermore, it might indicate possible difficulties during the progressive stages of this transition [7].…”

“…Recently, several studies evaluated this educational transition in different regions of the world comparing the oral health attitudes and behaviour among preclinical and clinical dental students as primary signs for educational progress. Several outcomes displayed significant improvements of oral health manners in clinical students [4,[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17], whereas others observed a less effective preclinical-clinical transition [18,19]. Examining the literature, no similar investigation was found in Germany.…”

Erratum: Assessment of oral health attitudes and behavior among students of Kuwait University Health Sciences Center

“…6 of Journal of International Society of Preventive and Community Dentistry[1], the information in the Financial support and sponsorship section is incorrectly written as “Nil”.…”