Knowledge of oral health and oral hygiene habits of college students.

Resumo

Introduction: Oral health is essential for people's well-being and quality of life; therefore, the present study performs an analysis on the knowledge of oral health and oral hygiene habits, making reference to the indicators of the WHO. Objective: To analyze the knowledge of oral health and oral hygiene habits in students of the Universidad Nacional Hermilio Valdizán, Peru, during the second semester of the 2019 academic year Material and Methods: Research type descriptive correlational design; the sample consisted of 234 students. Data collection involved the use of two questionnaires designed and validated for the study. Data processing was carried out using descriptive statistics and normality analysis using the Kolmogórov-Smirnov test. Results: The results of knowledge of oral health as well as oral hygiene habits showed a medium level. It was determined that there is a high positive correlation between the variables (R=0.796) and this correlation is significant with a level of confidence of 95% (p<0.05). Conclusion: Knowledge of oral health influences the oral hygiene habits of Peruvian students, and considering that oral diseases continue to be an important and growing global public health challenge, the State must formulate preventive measures with potentially different approaches to reduce its prevalence in the population.