Socio-Economic Statues and Oral Health Behaviours in a Sample of Iranian Students

Oral health is one of the most important parts of public health which significantly affects on quality of life. The purpose of this study is to assess the socio-economic statues as well as oral health behaviors among a sample of Iranian students studying in elementary level. This was a cross-sectional study which was conducted from April 2012 to November 2012. Data obtained from a face-to-face interviews with students studying in elementary schools of Chahbahar, Iran. Considering inclusion criteria, 300 eligible students were selected through a two - stage random cluster sampling. Data were analyzed through descriptive statistics using SPSS version 11.5. Totally 300 students who studying in grade four or five of elementary schools took part in the study. The mean age of subjects was (11± 2.81). Of all students, 11/7% (n = 35) never brush their teeth, 18% (n=54) never floss and 20% (n= 62) never used mouth wash. Furthermore, 94 students (31%) of students had no dental visits regularly. As the results showed, there were significant relationship between lower parents’ educational level (P=0.02), not to access to dental caries services (P=0.04) and lower income (P=0.03) and reasons for not doing oral health behaviour. According the results of this study the students who were in lower socio economic levels, doing less dental healthy behaviors.