Knowledge, Belief Attitude and Behavior Concerning Oral Hygiene in Healthcare and Non-Healthcare Students

보건계열 비보건계열 학생의 자기구강위생 관리에 관한 지식수준 및 신념과 태도, 행위

The present study attempts to investigate the knowledge, belief, attitude and behavior of healthcare major students and non-healthcare counterparts concerning their oral hygiene. The purpose is to provide basic data for positive oral health activities to the students with non-healthcare major, who tend to have insufficient information on oral hygiene. A survey was conducted to 400 students in K college in Incheon from May 1-30, 2003. A total of 384 surveys were analyzed using the SPSS program Version 10.0. The result is as follows: 1. There was a statistically significant difference in the knowledge on oral hygiene between the healthcare(M=3.08) and non-healthcare(M=2.78) students(pE0.05). 2. As for the beliefs and attitudes toward oral health behaviors, 56.9% of the healthcare students and 60.6% of non-health care counterparts responded "moderate" to the question asking if they liked tooth-brushing. The reason they liked tooth-brushing were cleanliness(60.3% of healthcare and 71.9% of non-healthcare students). They didn't like brushing their teeth because they felt it was a nuisance(60.6% of healthcare and 54.5% of non-healthcare students). 90.6% of healthcare students and 90.1% of their non-healthcare counterparts said they wanted to keep their oral health intact. Most of the subjects seemed to acquire information on oral hygiene through mass media(62.2% of healthcare and 55.3% of non-healthcare students). The persons who give them oral health information are their friends or neighbors(26.8% of healthcare and 22.8% of non-healthcare students), and dental hygienists were the last in the list of the sources of information(3.4% of healthcare and 2.5% of non-healthcare students). 3. Their oral health behaviors were also considered, 64.4% of the healthcare students and 53.7% of the non-healthcare counterparts brush their teeth once or twice a day, 51.4% of the former brush their teeth for 2 minutes and 44.8% of the latter for 3 minutes. Some of them use oral health measures other than tooth-brushing(13.3% of healthcare and 14.3% of non-healthcare students). Not many of them used oral health products(6.6% of healthcare and 5.9% of non-healthcare), and the difference was statistically significant(pE0.05). The largest number of healthcare students brush their teeth right before going to bed(29.9%), while their counterparts do it after breakfast(25.8%)