Development and Validation of Oral Health Knowledge, Attitude and Behavior Questionnaire among Indian Adults

Background and objectives: The Indian population faces numerous challenges to attain better oral hygiene due to a lack of oral health literacy. For the past 10 years, the prevalence of dental-related conditions in India has become a considerable problem in every state of India. A health-education-based oral health promotion strategy will be an ideal choice for the Indian population instead of endorsing conventional oral health promotion. The use of unsuitable tools to measure may lead to misleading and vague findings that might result in a flawed plan for cessation programs and deceitful effectiveness. Therefore, the research aimed to develop and validate an instrument that can assess the oral health knowledge, attitude and behavior (KAB) of adults in India. Materials and Methods: This study was carried among adults in India, who live in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. A questionnaire was fabricated and then validated using content, face, as well as construct. The knowledge domain was validated using item response theory analysis (IRT), whereas exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to validate the behavior domain and attitude. Results: Four principal sections, i.e., knowledge, attitude, demography and behavior, were used to fabricate a questionnaire following validation. Following analysis of item response theory on the knowledge domain, all analyzed items in the domain were within the ideal range of difficulty and discrimination. The Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measure of sampling adequacy was 0.65 for the attitude and 0.66 for the behavior domain. A Bartlett’s test of sphericity was conducted and demonstrated that outcomes for both domains were highly significant (p < 0.001). The factor analysis resulted in three factors with a total of eight items in the attitude domain and three factors with a total of seven items in the behavior domain depicting satisfactory factor loading (>0.3). Across the three factors, i.e., knowledge, attitude and behavior, internal consistency reliability was tested using Cronbach’s alpha, and the values obtained were 0.67, 0.87, 0.67, and 0.88, respectively. Conclusions: The findings of this study that assessed validity and reliability showed that the developed questionnaire had an acceptable psychometric property for measuring oral health KAB among adults in India.

Modelling the Maternal Oral Health Knowledge, Age Group, Social-Economic Status, and Oral Health-Related Quality of Life in Stunting Children

The main themes are two main health problems affecting children under five in Indonesia, namely nutrition and oral health. Lack of nutrition in children can also affect their general health, and so does their oral health, leading to their quality of life. The study aimed to analyse the relationship between maternal oral health knowledge, maternal age group, social-economic status with the oral health-related of life in stunting children. This type of analytical research used a survey method on 86 mothers aged 2-5 years in one of 15 villages designated by the mayor of Bandung as a stunting locus. Maternal oral health knowledge, social-economic status, and oral health-related quality of life were assessed using a set of questionnaires that have been pre-tested to non-participant mothers. The hypotheses of the conceptual model were tested using structural equation modelling-partial least squares. The results showed that 16.7% of the variance in OHRQoL was explained by maternal oral health knowledge and the maternal age group. Social-economic status has an indirect relationship to OHRQoL by predicting the maternal oral health knowledge 10.6%. The path coefficient between maternal age group and OHRQoL was the strongest (b = -0.350, P = 0.000), followed by SES and maternal oral health knowledge (b = 0.325, P = 0.04) and to OHRQoL (b = 0.215, P=0.02). The overall predictive power of the model was 10.6%. This result indicated maternal oral health knowledge, social-economic status, and maternal age group related to children's oral health quality of life.

Peningkatan Pengetahuan KESGILUT pada Anak Berkebutuhan Khusus melalui Aplikasi Teledentistry

The parents of special needs children (SNC) problem in West Sumatra is the poor oral health of SNC, due to a lack of oral and dental health maintenance knowledge. The teledentistry application “SpecialSmile” is the solution offered. The aim is to improve oral health knowledge remotely. The method is carried out by preparing educational content in scientific articles or audiovisuals form. Program evaluation was collected by filling out a questionnaire containing 10 questions about oral health knowledge, before and after using this application. Data analysis was done descriptively. The results obtained from 49 users, before using the application only 22.95% of parents had good knowledge and after using the application there was an increase of 80.33% of parents who had good knowledge regarding oral health maintenance among SNC. This program concludes that remote education using the SpecialSmile application can increase the knowledge of ABK parents about maintaining SNC's oral health

Saving Senior Smiles: A Community Outreach Educational Program and Pilot Research Project

Globally, poor oral health has been evidenced more frequently among older adults. Thus, it is imperative to develop strategies for improving the oral health knowledge and access to dental care amongst the older adult population. The Saving Senior Smiles (S3) pilot outreach program was launched as an oral health education and awareness program for community-dwelling older adults across senior centers in the greater Boston area (Massachusetts, USA). The outreach consisted of oral health educational seminars presented by pre- doctoral dental students from three dental schools in the Boston area. The presentations highlighted the significance of oral health, and the importance of seeking routine dental care. Pre and post-test surveys were administered to assess the participants’ utilization of oral health services and oral health knowledge. The surveys were completed by 85 older adults (Female= 58.8%) across five senior centers. Questions pertaining to utilization of dental services revealed that 78.8% of the participants had a dentist. Expectedly, the center that reported the greatest number of missing teeth (Fenway center= 70.6%) had the least number of individuals who had a dentist (58.3%). With regard to oral health knowledge, before the seminars, less than half of the participants (42.2% ) across all the senior centers were aware of the common oral conditions that affected older adults ( dry mouth, gum recession and changes in oral bacteria) and after the presentation over 60% of the participants responded correctly to these knowledge questions. Overall, these findings emphasize the value of simple community-based interventions for older adults.

Effectiveness of the novel teledentistry “HI BOGI” an android-based oral health application in increasing oral health knowledge of elementary school children

Introduction: Knowledge is the domain of behaviour. A person's good oral health behaviour must meet the elements of good oral health knowledge. Lack of oral health knowledge is one of the causes of oral dental disease. The most common oral dental disease, particularly in elementary school, is dental caries. One of the efforts to improve oral health knowledge is to be obtained from health promotion. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to many online health promotion media. One of the health promotion media is an Android-based oral health application. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of the application of oral health on knowledge of oral health in elementary school children during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Using an observational analytic method with a cross-sectional design. The sampling technique used is simple random sampling. The research instrument is a questionnaire via google form and the HI BOGI application. Analysis of the data used is the Wilcoxon test. Results: The study was conducted on 143 elementary school students in Cimahi City. 55.2% are female, and 36.4% are 12 years old. The level of knowledge of oral health before downloading the HI BOGI application was in the moderate category and became good after downloading the application. There was a significant value of knowledge before and after downloading the HI BOGI application with a significant value p<0,0000. Conclusion: There is an effect of HI BOGI to increase oral health knowledge in elementary school children.

Application of the extended theory of planned behavior to understand Chinese students’ intention to improve their oral health behaviors: a cross-sectional study

Background The present study aimed to develop and test an extended theory of planned behavior (TPB), which includes attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control, oral health knowledge, and past oral health behavior on the intention to improve oral health behaviors among primary school students in Shanghai, China. Methods A school-based cross-sectional study was conducted with 414 students in the third-grade from 10 classes of Mingqiang Primary School located in Shanghai, China. Participants were recruited in October 2019. Data were collected through self-reported questionnaires, consisting of demographic characteristics, TPB variables, oral health knowledge and past oral health behaviors. Exploratory factor analysis was used to analyze TPB items. Pearson’s correlation and hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to identify the associated factors of intention to improve oral health behaviors. Results The study showed that among students in the third grade, attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and past oral health behaviors were associated with the intention to improve oral health behaviors. In the hierarchical regression analysis, age and sex were entered in Model 1 which significantly explained 3.00% of the variance (F = 6.26, p < 0.01). The addition of Model 2 variables of attitudes, perceived behavioral control, subjective norms, and oral health knowledge revealed that TPB variables explained 26.70% (F = 29.59, p < 0.01). For Model 3, the addition of past oral health behaviors accounted for a further 1% of variance, and the full model has accounted for 28.30% of the variance with the intention to improve oral health behaviors (F = 22.8, p < 0.01). Regression analyses supported that among the significant variables, perceived behavioral control had the largest beta weight, followed by subjective norms and past oral health behaviors. Conclusion The extended TPB model constructed in this study could be used to explain children’s intentions to improve oral health behaviors. Children’s oral health-related perceived behavioral control, subjective norms, and past oral health behaviors may serve as priority intervention targets in oral health promotion practices aimed at children.