Oral health knowledge and behavior among male health sciences college students in Kuwait

A questionnaire was distributed to all students at the male Health Sciences College in Kuwait (N = 153) during the academic year 2001/2002. The students filled the anonymous questionnaire in the class after the lecture. The response rate was 84% (n = 128). The questions consisted information on the general background, oral health behavior and oral health knowledge.Oral health knowledge seemed to be limited and very few background factors were associated with it. More than half of the students had visited a dentist during the previous 12 months, but only one third of students were brushing twice a day or more often.It may be concluded that the male Health Sciences College students seemed to have appropriate knowledge on some oral health topics, but limited knowledge on the others. Their toothbrushing practices are still far behind the international recommendation (twice a day) and also the knowledge, why it should be done so frequently also very limited.Oral diseases are clearly related to behavior, and the prevalence of dental caries and periodontal disease has decreased with improvements in oral hygiene and a decrease in the consumption of sugar products. This general favorable trend in reducing dental caries, however, has not been seen in several developing countries [1] or in the Middle East [2,3]. While twice-a-day toothbrushing seems to be an established practice in several industrialized countries such as the United Kingdom [4], Italy [5], Sweden [6], and Norway [7], this goal is still very far from being realized in several other countries, including Turkey [8], Lebanon [9], Saudi Arabia [2] and Kuwait [10,11].Oral health knowledge is considered to be an essential prerequisite for health-related behavior [12], although only a weak association seems to exist between knowledge and behavior in cross-sectional studies [13,14]. Nevertheless, studies have shown that there is an association between increased knowledge and better oral health [15,16]. Since auxiliary