Dental health knowledge and behavior in al-Najaf City

الملخص EN

Poor oral health can effect growth, and can lead to medical complications of untreated disease, and results in poor social outcomes.

A closed ended questionnaire consist of 18 questions for adults and 9 question for school children to assess the oral health education and knowledge for groups of 300 adults and 369 children were randomly selected from Najaf city in (Najaf governorate), 160 kilometers south of Baghdad.

The results showed that the adults and children have acceptable dental health knowledge (67 %) and good dental behavior as teeth brushing (about 91 % for adults and 87 % for children) even once every week.

The study reveals that about (32 % for females and 31 % for males) they never visited the dentist because no pain, a financial problem, and a fear or dental anxiety made strong barrier for them to seek dental care.

While about (69 % males, and 67.5 % for females), they usually visited dentist because of pain, extraction, filling, and gingivitis the main causes for the visiting the dentist.

The main source of dental health education were the T.

V.

and reading for adults (for male about 65.5 % and about 49 % for female) and the school for the children.

The most important recommendations are to added a special dental educational learning studies in school’s programs, and special television programs for dental health care education.