The Relationship between Oral Health Attitude (HU-DBI) Score and Caries Experience (DMFT) Score among First Year Dental Students in USIM, Malaysia.

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.