Knowledge, Attitude And Practice Of Oral Hygiene Among Unimas Undergraduate Students In Rafflesia College

• Main Author: Fung, Sonia Jiu Man
• Format: Final Year Project Report
• Language: English; English
• Published: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, (UNIMAS) 2023
• Subjects: H Social Sciences (General)
• Online Access: http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/43365/1/Sonia%20Fung%20%2824pgs%29.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/43365/2/Sonia%20Fung%20%28Fulltext%29.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/43365/

Background: Oral health is essential as it play major roles in our daily life to chew, talk and socialize with people. Maintenance of oral health can be achieved by implementing the practice of oral hygiene. Objectives: The objectives were to assess the level of knowledge of oral hygiene in relation to oral health, attitude towards oral hygiene, the practice of oral hygiene as well as to investigate the relationships between knowledge, attitude and practice. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out by using self-administered questionnaire, which targeted to UNIMAS undergraduate students who stay in Rafflesia College. The sampling method was simple random sampling. There were six questions to assess the knowledge of oral hygiene, 11 questions to assess the attitude and nine questions to assess the practice of oral hygiene Data analysis was done by using SPSS to perform descriptive analysis and Spearman’s correlation coefficient test. Results: 340 students participated in the study (250 females, 90 males). The level of knowledge of oral hygiene was grouped into two, 62.6% (n = 213) students in ‘poor knowledge’ group whereas 37.4% (n =127) in ‘good knowledge’ group. Secondly, 48.5% (n = 165) students were grouped into ‘positive attitude’ group whereas 51.5% (n = 175) in ‘negative attitude’ group. Third, 35.6% (n = 121) students were grouped into ‘adequate practice’ group whereas 64.4% (n = 219) in ‘inadequate practice’ group. The correlation between the three variables revealed weak positive relationships, which knowledge-attitude (rS = 0.214), knowledge-practice (rS = 0.124) and attitude-practice (rS= 0.141). Conclusion: The results suggested that the knowledge and practice of oral hygiene were inadequate but the attitude was fair.