Abstract

Objectives: The aim of the study is to investigate the health belief model affecting the oral health behavior in middle and high school students. Methods: The subjects were 296 middle and high school students in Seoul, Gyeonggi and Incheon from February 15 to March 21, 2014. The students filled out the self-reported questionnaires after receiving informed consents. The instrument was adopted and revised from those of Kim & Hwang, and Choi & Joo. The questionnaire consisted of 4 questions of general characteristics, 9 questions of oral health status including subjective oral health status, frequency of tooth brushing, duration of tooth brushing, method of tooth brushing, use of oral health devices, dental clinic visit, scaling services, snack intake, and smoking. The oral health belief consisted of 25 questions including susceptibility, seriousness, barriers, benefit, and self-efficacy using Likert 5 scale. The reliability of Cronbach’s alpha in the study was 0.725. Data were analyzed using SPSS ver 18.0 for frequency analysis, t-test, ANOVA, χ2-test, and Pearson's correlation coefficient, simple regression, and binary logistic regression. Results: Oral health beliefs of middle and high school students affected the oral health behaviors. Susceptibility, barriers and self-efficacy also influenced on the oral health behaviors. In order to provide the best oral health education, susceptibility and self-efficacy are the primary factors to increase motivation because the motivation endows the students with correction of oral health behaviors that improve the knowledge, attitudes, and decrease barriers in oral hygiene. Conclusions: It is important to correct oral health behaviors in the middle and high school students by providing the continuing and systematic oral health education.

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