Investigation of Oral and Dental-Care Procedures in High School Students of Zanjan Province - 2005

Regarding the high prevalence of dental caries and its individual complications and the reports concerning the effects of healthy behavior on oral and dental hygiene, this study was carried out with the aim of investigation of different oral and dental-care procedures among adolescent population of Zanjan province during the academic year 2004-2005. This descriptive study was performed on 1500 high school students through multi-stage cluster random sampling. The study tool was researcher-made questionnaire whose validity and reliability had been confirmed through content validity and repeated test respectively. Descriptive statistics and X 2 test were used to determine the difference among groups (based on a number of demographic features). The most common dental-care procedure among the students was brushing (89.7%) and statistical tests showed a significant difference in terms of gender (P=0.001), different educational levels (P=0.04), different schools (P=0.02) and different school areas (P=0.001). The only common dental-care procedure used by the province adolescents was brushing. Hence, planning for various oral and dental-care procedures in adolescent population is highly recommended.