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Oral health attitudes and behavior among undergraduate students

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2022

E. Nikolaev ,
S. Petunova  and
N. Dakdaki
E. Nikolaev
Affiliation:
Ulianov Chuvash State University, Social And Clinical Psychology Department, Cheboksary, Russian Federation
S. Petunova*
Affiliation:
Ulianov Chuvash State University, Social And Clinical Psychology Department, Cheboksary, Russian Federation
N. Dakdaki
Affiliation:
Ulianov Chuvash State University, Medical Faculty, Cheboksary, Russian Federation
*
*Corresponding author.

Abstract

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Introduction

Oral health behavior is based on an acquired experience and cultural traditions. University education may smooth out cultural differences in oral health practice.

Objectives

Our goal is to study self-reported oral health attitudes and behavior of university students and the cultural basis for it.

Methods

We used the English version of the Hiroshima University Dental Behavioral Inventory to carry out an online survey of 136 university students of Morocco and Russia.

Results

Over half of the students (60.3%) do not feel anxious when visiting a dentist. Most of them take care of their gums (41.2%), teeth color (49.3%) and the degree of their cleanness (38.2%). The overwhelming majority of the students brush their each tooth very thoroughly (62.5%), they regularly examine their teeth in the mirror after brushing them (90.4%). They are well aware that tooth brushing alone cannot prevent a gum disease (63.2%), and they feel concerned about the possibility of having bad breath (73.6%). At the same time, over half of the students (61.7%) put off their visit to a dentist until they have a toothache, which is a negative behavioral factor. We did not reveal any gender or cultural differences between the students of the two countries, which can be regarded as a universalization factor of oral health behavior in young people who get higher education in universities.

Conclusions

The majority of the surveyed Russian and Moroccan university students have similar patterns of oral health attitudes and behavior. This assumption needs verification on a larger sample of students.

Disclosure

No significant relationships.

Keywords

Oral behaviorUndergraduate studentshealth attitudesoral health
Type
Abstract
Information
European Psychiatry , Volume 65 , Special Issue S1: Abstracts of the 30th European Congress of Psychiatry , June 2022 , pp. S881
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the European Psychiatric Association
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