role of oral hygiene beliefs in regular brushing among the 9-10 years old female students

aim: promotion of oral health in schools is one of the recommended polices of who. theaim of this study was to determine the role of oral hygiene beliefs according to the healthbelief model in regular brushing behavior, among the 9-10 years old female students.methods: this cross sectional study was conducted on the female students of rasht-iran in2012. applying the statistical estimation, the sample population was determined 265 whowere selected from 22 schools using systematic sampling method. nearly 12 students wereselected from each school using simple randomized method. data collection instrument wasa questionnaire and the results were analyzed using descriptive methods, and analyticalmethods including chi-square, mann-whitney u test and logistic regression.finding: among the samples, 17.4% brushed at least twice a day. the logistic regressionanalysis indicated that perceived severity (or = 0.48, 95% ci = 0.27- 0.86, p = 0.014),perceived barriers (or = 1.97, 95% ci = 1.29- 3.02, p = 0.002) and mothers' educationallevel (or = 4.78, 95% ci = 1.24- 18.46, p = 0.023) were the significant predicting factors fortooth brushing twice a day or more. there are significant statistical correlations among theperceived severity of loosing good eating and good speaking, and perceived barriers oftiredness, laziness and impatience with desirable behavior. overall 66.5% agreed with one ofthe two physical barriers: painful tooth brushing and gums bleeding.conclusion: promoting educational level and educational programs for iranian women arerecommended. planning useful educational interventions for the students of concreteoperational stage is required attention to the application of piaget’s theory of cognitivedevelopment. educational interventions should focus on items of beliefs named above. atleast 70 percent of iranian people need to learn the correct ways of brushing teeth.