Oral health attitude and behaviours are important indicators of a person's oral health status. Measuring caries experience is one of the assessments to investigate overall oral health status. Our study aimed to determine the relationship between oral health attitude and caries experience in a group of first year dental students in Faculty of Dentistry, USIM, Malaysia. The hypothesis was the higher HU-DBI score of a person, the lower their DMFT score. All 35 newly registered first year dental students were examined clinically, and their caries status was measured using the DMFT score, a standard index used to measure caries experience with lower score indicates low caries experience. Hiroshima University - Dental Behaviour Inventory (HU-DBI) questionnaire in English version was used to measure their oral health attitude. Twelve items were selected and scored, with one point given for each agree/ disagree answer given. Higher scores indicate better oral health attitude and behaviour, with maximum score of 12. Data were statistically analysed using SPSS ver. 17. Pearson correlation were used to analyse the strength of linear relationship between oral health attitude (HU-DBI score) and caries experience (DMFT score). There was no significant correlation between oral health attitude and caries experience (r = - 0.022, p value =0.9). However, the correlation coefficient showed a negative trend, possibly indicating an inverse relationship between the two variables.

As a silent disease, individuals at risk of periodontitis are not easily identified until the disease has become severe. Early detection at the community level is essential, especially for general dental practitioners. The aim of this study was to design a comprehensive, user-friendly tool to screen patients’ periodontal health at community level and to evaluate users’ acceptance of its use. The periodontal health screening module was first developed by an expert panel of periodontists, public health specialists and general dentists. The developed module was tested for content acceptance on 156 graduating dental students from three public schools and later validated by 12 private general dental practitioners (GDPs) for reliability. Most of the students (64.1%) found the new module an easy assessment tool for periodontal health compared to the Basic Periodontal Examination (BPE). Most claimed that they understand the contents (80.8%) and accepted the designs (86.6%) and agreed (82.7%) that the new assessment module would allow them to screen patients anytime in the clinic. The interrater reliability as assessed between the GDPs and the investigators revealed acceptable agreement ranging from 62.5–100.0% (mean 89.6 ± 10.2%). The simplified digital periodontal health screening module showed promising acceptance for application in private general dental clinics