Oral health awareness and tooth brushing behaviour among high school students in a rural and an urban area: a comparative study

Abstract

Background: Oral health is vital to the overall health and well being of an individual. It is imperative to train children from a young age in order to inculcate good oral hygiene practices among them that would become the basis for a healthy society. It is generally observed that children from urban areas are more sensitized towards personal hygiene than those from rural area. Objective: Our objective was to evaluate the oral health knowledge, attitudes, and practices among secondary school students in urban and rural areas of Karad, Maharashtra. Methods: A cross sectional study sample of 200 students (100 student from rural and 100 from urban) from 2 schools were included in the study. Participants for this study were selected by stratified random sampling and included both males and females, aged between 12-14 years. All the participants were requested to complete a closed-ended questionnaire of 18 questions for assessment of knowledge, attitude and local oral health practices. Results: The overall results showed that urban children showed a better knowledge, attitude and practice of oral hygiene in comparison to those from rural areas inspite of the fact that both the areas were not very different culturally, economically or in terms of development. Conclusions: Rural areas need more oral health awareness programmes and outreach activities for promoting better community oral health and hygiene.

Keywords

• brushing
• knowledge
• oral health practices
• questionnaire