Dental Health Knowledge and Attitude among Students in Xi'an

Objective: The aim of this study was to survey the dental health knowledge, attitude and health practices among the middle school students in Xi`an , China, and to provide scientific basis for oral health education. Methods: Data of 1837 middle school students had been collected with stratified sampling and cluster sampling, and analyzed with software such as Foxpro 6.0 and SPSS 11.5. Results: The results had shown that 87.1% of the middle school students had their own toothbrushes, 13.7% used fluoride toothpaste, 27.1% selected the correct toothbrush with soft bristle, 20.4% had wrong attitude and practices towards toothbrush replacement, 26.7% knew that the scaling is the appropriate way to removal dental calculus, and 33.5% understood that gingivitis caused gingival bleeding while brushing. Conclusion: This study had shown that dental health knowledge, attitude and health practices among the middle school students in Xi'an were unsatisfactory.We suggest that the work of propaganda on oral health need to be strengthened, and the order of oral health care is to be established.