Investigate of Tooth Decay and Its Relationship With Knowledge, Attitude and Performance (Kap) in High School Students in Islamabad-E-Gharb City

Oral and dental health plays an important role in people's general health and is affected by various factors such as knowledge and attitude of a person regarding oral and dental health. Improving people's Knowledge and attitude in this regard will lead to more attention towards oral and dental health. therefore, the present study was conducted to determine the rate of tooth decay and its relationship with knowledge, attitude and performance in high school students in the Islamabad-e-Gharb city.

This study was a cross-sectional study conducted among 348 high school students in Islamabad-e-Gharb. Which were selected through sampling in two stages, cluster and random. Data were collected using clinical examination and standard questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics, independent t-test, one-way analysis of variance, Sheffe post hoc test and Spearman's correlation coefficient at a significance level of less than 0.05 using SPSS software, version 22.

This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences (Code: IR.KUMS.REC.1397.548). 

The Mean Decay-Missing-Filled Teeth (DMFT) index 6.07±3.47 and Mean teeth decayed were 5.31± 2.90 respectively and 96.3 percent of the students had dental carries. Both DMFT index (r=-0.124, P=0.021) and teeth decay (r=-131, P=0.015) had a significant relationship with students' performance regarding oral and dental health. There was no significant difference between DMFT index and the number of teeth decayed with students' knowledge and attitude regarding oral and dental health (P<0.05). No significant relationship were found between either DMFT index (P=0.749) and teeth decay (P=0.614) with gender.

In this study, DMFT index and teeth decay were relatively high and this shows the need to design educational interventions in adolescents to prevent teeth decay.