An Investigation Of Oral Health Knowledge, Attitude, And Behavior Among The Community's Old People

Objective: The investigation attempted the status of Oral health knowledge, attitude and behavior among the community's old people, as well as the influencing factors. In order to provide the evidence for strengthening the oral health education to the old people directly.Methods: in this cross section study, the questionnaires were completed by residents who aged 60 and with normal cognitive function. The questionnaire includes the features of aged, oral health knowledge, attitude and behavior. Statistic method: SPSS12.0 statistical package was used to analyze the data. Descriptive Statistics-Frequencies , Crosstabs ,Kruskal-Wallis,Correlate,Compare Means,One-Way ANOVA were performed to study the states and the influencing factors.Results: A total of 584 valid questionnaires were obtained, among them, 326 were men, 258 were women. The old people ranged from 60 to 88 years. The results were followed:1 The gateways of obtaining oral health knowledge to old people were: TV 15.8%, book 6.8%, newspapers and magazines 35.3%, while health education lectures 0.3%. The media was the main source of information about oral health knowledge to old people. 2 The oral health knowledge of old people is very poor. During 12 oral health knowledge questions, the average number of correct answer to the questions was 3.16±2.13. The numbers of correct answer to oral health knowledge questions were in significant difference in different educational background, profession, and salary (p<0.01). Positive correlation between educational background, salary and the numbers of correct answer of oral health knowledge.3 The level of old people's oral health attitude is very low. During 4 oral health attitude questions, the average number of correct answer to the questions was 1.95±1.19. 13% of old people answerd all the questions incorrectly, 11.3% of aged answerd all the questions correctly only. There were 456(78.1%) old peoples who have believed that"The tooth drops off inevitable"yet. The number of correct answer to the questions were in significant difference between different educational background, profession, different salary (p<0.01). Positive correlation between educational background, salary and the numbers of correct answer of oral health attitude.4 Oral health behavior.Oral hygiene behavior: 11% of aged brushed their teeth 0 times, only 36.9% of old people brushed their teeth 2 times or more per day, 67.4% of old people brushed their teeth incorrectly. None of old people used tooth floss to remove plaque and food stuck.Dental service utilization: Only 15.5% of old people had gone to see dental doctor when they got a toothache firstly, while 20.1% of old people had chosed to pull out the tooth first.Conclusions: The media is the main source of information about oral health knowledge to old people. The oral health knowledge, attitude, behavior of old people are very poor. The old people's oral health knowledge, attitude are affected by educational levels and economic. The KAP model believes that, if you know more about oral health knowledge, you can set up the correct oral health attitude, and you can establish the correct oral health behavior. So from now on, we will strengthen of oral health education to the old people directly, in order to promote the quality of life of the old people.