knowledge, attitude and practice toward oral health: the case of abadan nursing school students in 2011

oral health as an essential indicator of public health significantly affects public health. adequate knowledge, attitude and practice can effectively prevent many oral diseases. therefore, this study examines students’ knowledge, attitude and practice toward oral health. the study used a descriptive – analytical method and immediate sample available for gathering data. this study included the views of 131 students of abadan nursing college. a questionnaire was used which integrated both demographic and oral health questions. spss analyses included variance, pearson correlation and t-test. the results showed that the mean of students’ attitude score was 11.3 ± 2.4, which suggested a moderate attitude toward oral health. the correlation between students’ attitudes and gender (p: 0.01), students’ attitudes and underlying disease (p: 0.02), students’ attitudes and economic status (p: 0.007) were all significant. the mean of students’ knowledge score was 8.17 ± 3.3 as 36.6% of participants had enough knowledge about oral health. however, there was no significant association between oral health and demographic information. the results also showed that most participants had adequate practices for oral health. since attitudes and knowledge of the participants were not satisfactory, but rather moderate, it could be said that oral health requires more training to compensate for the vacancies.