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.