Oral Hygiene Knowledge Among Senior Secondary School Students in Southern Senatorial District of Cross River State, Nigeria
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.66531/mjph.2026.v1i1.e4Keywords:
Oral Hygiene Knowledge, Dental Health, Secondary School Students, Cross River State, NigeriaAbstract
Background: The fundamental driver that protects adolescents from tooth decay is their understanding of oral health according to research findings about oral health knowledge. The existing evidence linking poor oral health knowledge to poor hygiene practices among secondary school students in sub-Saharan Africa remains insufficient. The research aimed to evaluate the oral hygiene understanding of senior secondary school students in the Southern Senatorial District of Cross River State Nigeria.
Materials and Methods: The team conducted a cross-sectional descriptive study which used multi-stage random sampling to select 394 participants from five public secondary schools located in five different Local Government Areas. The researchers collected data through a validated 55-item structured questionnaire which had a Cronbach alpha score of 0.82, and they used Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 23 to perform descriptive statistics and chi-square tests for data analysis.
Results: About 38.1% of participants demonstrated good oral hygiene knowledge, 42.1% demonstrated fair knowledge, and 16.8% demonstrated poor knowledge. The study found that 65.5% of participants correctly identified soft drinks as substances which harm teeth, while 61.4% of participants understood dental visits as treatments that improve oral health. The study found that age directly affected knowledge acquisition because older students had superior knowledge than their younger counterparts. The study found no sex, caregiver type, or religious affiliation-based differences. The students who possessed good oral health knowledge demonstrated critical knowledge gaps which existed because they lacked understanding about how sweets cause dental caries.
Conclusion: Schools should establish targeted oral health education programs focused on dietary risk and dental hygiene for students.
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