A cross-cultural comparison of dental health attitudes and behaviour among freshman dental students in Japan, Hong Kong and West China

Objective: To clarify the differences in dental health attitudes/behaviour among freshman dental students. Design: Cross-cultural differences. Setting: Japan, Hong Kong and West China. Participants and methods: The original version of the Hiroshima University-Dental Behavioural Inventory (HU-DBI) was written in Japanese. After testing the validity of both English and Chinese versions, the original version of the HU-DBI was administered to 58 freshman Japanese dental students, the English version to 43 Hong Kong Chinese peers and the Chinese version to 39 West Chinese peers. Results: Significant cultural differences were found for 16 items out of 20. The most striking result was that the Japanese students were more likely to have used a dye to see how clean their teeth were, compared to their Chinese peers (P<0.001). The Chinese students were less likely to have a belief that they could clean their teeth well without using toothpaste (P<0.001), whereas higher percentages of the Chinese students worried about having bad breath (P<0.001 ). A higher percentage of the Hong Kong students reported that they regularly checked their teeth in a mirror than did their West Chinese or Japanese peers (P<0.05). Conclusions: There were considerable differences in dental health attitudes/ behaviour among freshman dental students in the three cultural groups. © 2001 FDI/World Dental Press.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

An exploratory study on cultural variations in oral health attitudes, behaviour and values of freshman (first-year) dental students

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. © 2005 FDI/World Dental Press.link_to_subscribed_fulltex