Evaluation of the Oral Health Knowledge, Attitude and Behavior of the Preclinical and Clinical Dental Students

BACKGROUND Dentists play very important role in the oral health education of the community. Thus it is important to know the status of knowledge, attitude, and behavior toward the maintenance of oral health at the student level. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the oral health knowledge, attitude, and behavior among preclinical and clinical dental students. MATERIALS AND METHODS A cross-sectional study was conducted on 147 dental students from 1(st) to 4(th) year of Malabar Dental College, Kerala, in the year of March-June 2010 and was carried out with the help of 30 questionnaires. Age, gender and academic year data were recorded. Statistical analysis was performed with the help of SPSS version 20 using the Student's t-test and one-way ANOVA tests. RESULTS The difference in scores of oral health knowledge, attitude and behavior between preclinical and clinical dental students was found statistically highly significant (Student's t-test, P < 0.001). The variation of scores of knowledge, attitude, and behavior also showed highly significant increase with the year of study (one-way ANOVA, P < 0.001). While the difference in scores between males and females showed that females have better oral health knowledge than males, but the difference was not statistically significant (Student's t-test, P > 0.01). The present study thus showed improvement of knowledge, attitude and behavior with the academic years and there was no bias of gender with reference to oral health. CONCLUSIONS Although oral health knowledge, attitude and behavior showed improved results from 1(st) to 4(th) year dental students, it should be improved in order to serve better for the community in the future.