Community Medicine Abstracts - College of Medicine and Health ...

Project No. 88 (1996)The Knowledge, Atttitude and Practice of Preparatory School ChildrenTowards Dental Health in Abu Dhabi and Al AinStudent Authors: Iman AhmedFaculty Supervisors: Prof. O. Lloyd, Dr. A. BenerAbstract:Objectives To determine the knowledge, attitude and practice of preparatory schoolchildren towards dental health and if these were influenced by age, sex, stage,nationality, father’s occupation and the educational level of the women as well as thefamily income.Methods Preparatory school children of governmental and private schools wereselected for this cross sectional study. Multistage sampling technique was performed.Data was collected in a pre-tested questionnaire. 521 subjects were recruited in thisstudy. This study was conducted in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain over a 5 weeks period in1996.Results This study involved 521 school children whose age ranged from 11- 18. Ingeneral both students of Al Ain and Abu Dhabi had a good general knowledge aboutdental health. About 91% knew about fluoride and 82% knew its benefits. Theeducational level of mothers had a highly positive significant influence on theknowledge of Al Ain students while the father’s occupation influenced the knowledge ofAbu Dhabi students positively. Those students had a fairly good attitude towardsdental health that was significantly influenced by the level of the knowledge. Inaddition 83% of students enjoyed brushing their teeth and more than 55% likedvisiting the dentist. The majority of students used the toothbrush and toothpaste incleaning their teeth and a very slight percentage would consider the dental floss.Conclusion Knowledge of dental health should be improved further among schoolchildren. Therefore more efforts from the educational and health professionals areneeded to improve the knowledge and to explore the ways of improving the practice ofdental hygiene in reducing the risk of oral diseases.