Association between oral health behavior and oral health literacy among college students

Background and Aim: Oral health literacy is a new imperative in dentistry and is considered as a new determinant of oral health and should be considered more intensively in oral health research. Knowledge of oral health is considered to be a prerequisite for health related behaviour. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the association of oral health literacy with oral health behaviours.Materials and Methods: A cross sectional, analytical study was conducted among 402 subjects aged 18-25 years selected through simple random sampling. Data regarding tobacco use was collected using a questionnaire to collect information on demographics, oral health behaviours and oral health literacy. Results: The response rate was 95.7% and the mean age of participants was 20.56 ± 2.63 years with male: female ratio of 1:1.29 respectively. 70.4% of study participants had high oral health literacy. A statistically significant association was found between OHL and oral health behaviours. Conclusion: Our findings indicate that oral health literacy is associated with differences in oral health behaviours and clinical oral health status. An understanding of participants’ oral health literacy levels is crucial for designing effective health educational materials and creating intervention programs to promote oral health.