Özet:

Dental assistants, are member of the dental care. Along with dentists, they play an important role in the dental clinics. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate oral hygiene habits, tooth brushing motivation factors of a group of oral and dental assistant (DA) and dental (D) students.This student-based cross-sectional study was carried out by conducting a self administered questionnaire of a total of 142 students, 68 of whom were dental assistant and 74 of them were dental students. In this self-report questionnaire, the demography, duration and frequency of oral hygiene habits, motivating factor in brushing teeth were investigated. Dental students brushed twice a day but the vast majority (94%) of dental assistant students brushed at least once a day. Among those 76.1% them reported they brushed at least 2. While there was a statistically significant difference in brushing rate between D and DA students (p <0.0001), no statistically significant difference was found by gender and grade level. The regular interdental aid usage rate is quite low among both D (14.9%) and DA (5.9%) students. 83.1% of the students reported that they brushed their teeth for at least 2 minutes. No significant difference was found in brushing time according to gender or grade level (p>0.05). Among the participants, “fear of losing teeth” was the most marked among the brushing motivation factors. Oral hygiene habits can be improved by considering the motivational factors in brushing teeth. In addition, DA and D students are thought to carry their attitudes and knowledge to their patients in the field. Therefore it is important to identify the deficiencies and enhance oral and dental health habits

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