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

Abstract

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.