Oral health attitudes and behavior among undergraduate students

INTRODUCTION: Oral health behavior is based on an acquired experience and cultural traditions. University education may smooth out cultural differences in oral health practice. OBJECTIVES: Our goal is to study self-reported oral health attitudes and behavior of university students and the cultural basis for it. METHODS: We used the English version of the Hiroshima University Dental Behavioral Inventory to carry out an online survey of 136 university students of Morocco and Russia. RESULTS: Over half of the students (60.3%) do not feel anxious when visiting a dentist. Most of them take care of their gums (41.2%), teeth color (49.3%) and the degree of their cleanness (38.2%). The overwhelming majority of the students brush their each tooth very thoroughly (62.5%), they regularly examine their teeth in the mirror after brushing them (90.4%). They are well aware that tooth brushing alone cannot prevent a gum disease (63.2%), and they feel concerned about the possibility of having bad breath (73.6%). At the same time, over half of the students (61.7%) put off their visit to a dentist until they have a toothache, which is a negative behavioral factor. We did not reveal any gender or cultural differences between the students of the two countries, which can be regarded as a universalization factor of oral health behavior in young people who get higher education in universities. CONCLUSIONS: The majority of the surveyed Russian and Moroccan university students have similar patterns of oral health attitudes and behavior. This assumption needs verification on a larger sample of students. DISCLOSURE: No significant relationships.