Evaluation of Self-Reported Oral Health Attitudes and Behavior of Dental Students in Antalya, Turkey

Background Dental students are expected to play a critical role in the oral health education of society as future providers of dental care, and their attitudes on this subject have a possible impact on the awareness of patients regarding the importance of preventing oral diseases and improving oral health. This study aimed to evaluate the oral health attitudes and behavior of dental students. Methodology The Turkish version of the Hiroshima University Dental Behavior Inventory (HU-DBI) questionnaire regarding oral health attitudes and behaviors with an additional nine questions was distributed among 250 native Turkish-speaking dental students at the Faculty of Dentistry in Antalya, Turkey. The validity of the nine questions added to the original questionnaire was evaluated by expert opinion and a pretest method. A self-administered questionnaire was used for data collection. The Mann-Whitney U test and chi-square test were used for statistical analysis, and the statistical significance level was set at p-values <0.05. Results The mean age of the 250 students in the study was 20.96 ± 1.66 years. In total, 157 (62.8%) students were preclinical (first, second, and third year) dentistry students, and 93 (37.2%) students were clinical (fourth and fifth year) dentistry students. The mean HU-DBI score of all students was 5.95 ± 1.65, and the mean HU-DBI score of clinical students (6.42 ± 1.65) was significantly (p < 0.05) higher than that of preclinical students (5.67 ± 1.59). The mean HU-DBI score of male and female students was 5.63 ± 1.55 and 6.24 ± 1.69, respectively, and this difference was statistically significant (p < 0.05). The study showed significant improvement in the behavior and attitude regarding the oral health of the clinical dental students compared with the preclinical dental students. Conclusions Among dental students, clinical students and female students had generally better attitudes and behaviors about oral health self-care compared to preclinical students and male students, respectively.