Search

Objective: To explore and describe international oral health attitudes/ behaviours among final year dental students., Methods: Validated translated versions of the Hiroshima University-Dental Behavioural Inventory (HU-DBI) questionnaire were administered to 1,096 final-year dental students in 17 countries. Hierarchical cluster analysis was conducted within the data to detect patterns and groupings., Results: The overall response rate was 72%. The cluster analysis identified two main groups among the countries. Group 1 consisted of twelve countries: one Oceanic (Australia), one Middle-Eastern (Israel), seven European (Northern Ireland, England, Finland, Greece, Germany, Italy, and France) and three Asian (Korea, Thailand and Malaysia) countries. Group 2 consisted of five countries: one South American (Brazil), one European (Belgium) and three Asian (China, Indonesia and Japan) countries. The percentages of 'agree' responses in three HU-DBI questionnaire items were significantly higher in Group 2 than in Group 1. They include: "I worry about the colour of my teeth."; "I have noticed some white sticky deposits on my teeth."; and "I am bothered by the colour of my gums.", Conclusion: Grouping the countries into international clusters yielded useful information for dentistry and dental education.

Objective: To identify similarities and differences in oral health attitudes, behaviour and values among freshman dental students., Design: Cross-cultural survey of dental students., Setting: 18 cultural areas., Participants and Methods: 904 first-year dental students completed the Hiroshima University-Dental Behavioural Inventory (HU-DBI) translated into their own languages. Individual areas were clustered by similarity in responses to the questions., Results: The first group displayed an 'occidental-culture orientation' with the exception of Brazil (Cluster 1 comprised: Australia, United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium and Brazil, Cluster 2: Germany, Italy, Finland and France). The second group displayed an 'oriental-cultural orientation' with the exception of Greece and Israel (Cluster 3 comprised: China and Indonesia, and Cluster 4: Japan, Korea, Israel, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand and Greece). Australia and United Kingdom were the countries that were most alike. Ireland was the 'neighbour' to these countries. Greece and Malaysia had similar patterns of oral health behaviour although geographic conditions are very different. Although it was considered that in Hong Kong, occidental nations have affected the development of education, it remained in the oriental-culture group. Comparison with the data from the occidentals indicates that a higher percentage of the orientals put off going to the dentist until they have toothache (p < 0.001). Only a small proportion of the occidentals (8%) reported a perception of inevitability in having false teeth, whereas 33% of the orientals held this fatalistic belief (p = 0.001)., Conclusions: Grouping the countries into key cultural orientations and international clusters yielded plausible results, using the HU-DBI.