Abstract

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the oral health condition, recognition, and practice in prisoners. Methods: A self-reported questionnaire was filled out by 143 prisoners in three jails from April 7 to June 2, 2014. The questionnaire consisted of 35 questions including 5 questions of general characteristics of the subjects, 4 questions of subjective oral health condition, 5 questions of management of oral health care, 11 questions of oral health recognition, and 10 questions of oral health practice. The questionnaire was adopted and modified by Shon et al. and Cho & Choi and measured by Likert 5 scale. Cronbach's alpha was 0.845 in recognition questions and Cronbach's alpha was 0.826 in the practice questions. The data were analyzed using SPSS 18.0 for t-test, one-way analysis of variance(ANOVA) and Pearson's correlation analysis. Results: 21.0% of prisoners answered that their perceived oral health condition was good. Those who received the dental treatment accounted for 42.0% and 12.6% of them took the oral health education. There was a significantly negative relationship between perceived oral health and oral health recognition(p<0.05). The oral health recognition showed positive influence on oral health practice(p<0.001). Conclusions: In general, prisoners did not receive the proper care of oral health in jails. Therefore, It is desirable that we need to set up a oral health care system for prisoners.

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