Abstract
BackgroundIt is widely accepted that oral health plays an important role in overall health. Both dental and medical students are expected to possess good oral health awareness and work together for public oral health promotion especially in developing countries like China. The aim of this study was to assess the oral health knowledge, behavior and status of dental and medical undergraduate students in the first (fresh) and third year (before specialized courses) study.MethodsA self-administered structured questionnaire with 13 questions was designed based on oral health knowledge, behavior and status and a cross-sectional study was conducted among the 1st, 3rd year dental students (1DS, 3DS) and medical students (1MS, 3MS) of Sichuan University in Chengdu, China, in the period of September–December 2017. The data was analyzed by chi-square test using IBM SPSS Statistics v. 21.0.ResultsThe oral health behavior, consciousness and status of the 1st, 3rd year medical and dental students were not optimistic. Dental freshmen were slightly superior to the medical ones in terms of the brushing methods and the awareness of oral disease-systemic disease relationship. The junior dental students showed highly significant improvement than their counterparts, mainly in the items about frequency of brushing teeth, brushing methods of vertical scrub or Bass technique (66.3%), usage of floss or mouth wash (49.7%), causes of caries, periodontal diseases and system diseases (56.9–83.4%). The rates mentioned above were 36.1, 15.8%, 26.7–43.6% among 3MS, respectively. In terms of oral health status, significant differences were only observed in junior students. The prevalence rates of bad breath, gum bleeding, and tooth discoloration among 3DS were obviously lower than those of 3MS. However, only a total of 17.2% junior students had a good oral health, including 23.8% dental students and 11.4% medical students.ConclusionsOur study provided a new understanding of oral health knowledge, behavior and status among dental and medical students, which may help to promote the reform of oral health education and establish a model for clinicians and dentists to work together for improving oral health.
Highlights
It is widely accepted that oral health plays an important role in overall health
Oral health knowledge was studied by 6 questions 1) which are the causes of dental caries, 2) which are the causes of bleeding during tooth brushing, 3) which is the influence of dental plaque, 4) which measures can prevent oral diseases, 5) which systemic diseases may be related to oral diseases, and 6) which is more important for keeping good oral health: self-administration or dentists
As for the method of tooth brushing, 66.3% of the third-year dental students followed the right procedure of the vertical scrub or modified Bass technique, whereas more than half of the third-year medical students wrongly brushed their teeth horizontally or irregularly
Summary
It is widely accepted that oral health plays an important role in overall health. Both dental and medical students are expected to possess good oral health awareness and work together for public oral health promotion especially in developing countries like China. Oral health plays an important role in overall health and is an indispensable part of general health [4,5,6]. Oral diseases are still one kind of the most prevalent problems that affect the overall health of human being [17]. Periodontitis and dental caries, as two major oral problems, affects 60 and 36% people worldwide, respectively [18,19,20]. According to the recently issued data acquired from the 4th national oral health epidemiology survey of China, the caries prevalence rates of children aged 5 and 12 were 70.1 and 34.5%, respectively, even higher than those reported by the 3rd national survey in 2005 [21]
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