Abstrato

Oral health awareness of college students in some areas of Gangwon province.

Chan Ho Park, Yi-Sub Kwak, Hye Young Kim

The purpose of this study was to identify and use the oral health knowledge of some college students as basic data in order to set a direction and improve the content and method of oral health education program for the college students. This study was conducted from March to early April of 2016 on students who were attending Kangwon National University. A total of 130 questionnaires were selected for the final analysis and the following conclusions were obtained. The analysis result for the oral health awareness showed that the oral health information was most commonly obtained from the ‘dental clinic’ (43.8%) and more than half of the respondents (50.8%) had an ‘average’ interest in oral health. The most common response to the subjective oral health status was also ‘average’ (46.9%). With regard to the regular checkup period, 58.5% answered ‘every year’. In terms of brushing education, 28.5% of the males and 35.4% of the females have brushing education experience, thereby showing that the proportion of females was higher than the males. As for the grade level with brushing education experience, 22.3% were in 1st year college, 17.7% were in 2nd year college, 15.4% were in 3rd year college and 8.5% were in 4th year college. The difference was statistically significant (p<0.05). The result implies that brushing education is given in the lower grade levels, but it is not given in the higher grade levels. As the awareness on oral health care and education opportunities have been gradually reduced, oral health education programs must be developed based on this study for more effective oral health care and maintenance in college students, and efforts should be made in delivering proper oral health knowledge. Moreover, basic research should be conducted regularly.