Oral health beliefs and cultural specificity in multicultural families

Tae-Hee Lee; Seungjae Choi; Jae-Young Lee; Bo-Young Park; Hye-Ran Paik; Bo-Hyoung Jin

doi:10.11149/jkaoh.2015.39.3.220

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Lee, Choi, Lee, Park, Paik, and Jin: Oral health beliefs and cultural specificity in multicultural families

Original Article

J Korean Acad Oral Health 2015;39(3):220-225.

Published online: 12 September 2015

DOI: https://doi.org/10.11149/jkaoh.2015.39.3.220

Oral health beliefs and cultural specificity in multicultural families

Tae-Hee Lee¹, Seungjae Choi¹, Jae-Young Lee¹, Bo-Young Park², Hye-Ran Paik², Bo-Hyoung Jin¹

¹Department of Preventive & Social Dentistry, School of Dentistry, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea

²School of Dentistry, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea

Corresponding Author: Bo-Hyoung Jin Department of Preventive & Social Dentistry, School of Dentistry, Seoul National University, 101 Daehak-ro, Jongro-gu, Seoul 03080, Korea Tel: +82-2-740-8783 Fax: +82-2-765-1722 E-mail: jjbh@snu.ac.kr

Received 1 September 2015 Revised 18 September 2015 Accepted 18 September 2015

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Objectives

The aim of this study was to evaluate the oral health beliefs and cultural specificity of multicultural families.

Methods

Subjects were 179 adults from multicultural families living in Gwangjin-gu, Seoul. The surveys and interviews were performed between June and November 2014 in the subjects’ native languages (English, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Korean). The surveys were conducted using a self-administration method and a face-to-face interviewing method with the assistance of translators.

Results

Perceived barrier of oral health belief scores were higher in Vietnamese and Korean spouses than those from other countries (P<0.05). Cultural specificity scores were highest among the Japanese and lowest among the Vietnamese (P<0.01).

Conclusions

Multicultural families showed different oral health beliefs and cultural specificities. Therefore, future oral health care programs for multicultural families should consider cultural differences and adaptations.

Keywords: Cultural belief, Multicultural family, Oral health belief

References

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Table 1.

Reliability of questionnaire for oral health belief & cultural belie

		N	Cronbach 
Oral health belief	Susceptibility	3	0.653
	Salience	3	0.696
	Barrier	5	0.676
Cultural belief		6	0.544

Table 2.

Oral health belief & cultural specificity of each country

	Nationality					P-value*
	China	Vietnam	Japan	Other countries	Korea spouse
	(N=70)	(N=35)	(N=26)	(N=21)	(N=27)
Oral health belief
Susceptibility	33.96 (18.74)	34.76 (18.58)	29.81 (13.98)	37.30 (21.67)	38.27 (18.38)	0.500
Salience	15.48 (13.10)	19.76 (16.31)	14.10 (11.49)	16.67 (13.44)	11.42 (9.85)	0.160
Barrier**	43.54 (16.95)	50.15 (17.99)	37.12 (15.70)^b	49.76 (18.94)	50.19 (16.70)	0.015
Cultural belief**	64.82 (13.09)	55.12 (14.26)^a	72.76 (12.81)^b	57.54 (17.76)^c	66.51 (16.77)^b	0.000

The data was presented by mean and standard deviation. *P-value was determined by one-way ANOVA test for continuous variables. **P-value<0.05.

^a Character means significant difference against Chinese by post hoc Tukey test.

^b Character means significant difference against Vietnamese by post hoc Tukey test.

^c Character means significant difference against Japanese by post hoc Tukey test.

Table 3.

Oral health belief & cultural belief following education level

	Education level			P-value*
	≥Elementry school	Middle school-High school	≤College graduates	P-value*
Oral health belief
Susceptibility	34.57±21.15	34.12±18.68	36.05±17.48	0.848
Salience**	21.91±14.28^a	13.47±12.47	14.86±12.54	0.011
Barrier	48.46±19.84	45.91±16.52	43.26±19.15	0.476
Cultural belief	59.57±16.17	63.22±13.53	67.57±17.94	0.083

The data was presented by mean and standard deviation. *P-value was determined by one-way ANOVA test for continuous variables. **P-value<0.05.

^a Character means significant difference against middle school-high school group by post hoc Tukey test.

Table 4.

Oral health belief & cultural belief following proficiency of Korean

	Proficiency of Korean			P-value*
	Low	Middle	High	P-value*
Oral health belief
Susceptibility	34.80±20.05	34.66±17.40	32.47±19.16	0.792
Salience**	21.32±12.51^a	17.45±14.30^a	11.44±12.58	0.003
Barrier	50.63±18.35^b	41.45±19.02	45.31±14.73	0.057
Cultural belief**	58.58±13.87^a	60.74±16.06^a	67.97±13.73	0.007

Korean spouses were excluded (N=152). The data was presented by mean and standard deviation. *P-value was determined by one-way ANOVA test for continuous variables. **P-value<0.05.

^a Character means significant difference against high group by post hoc Tukey test.

^b Character means significant difference against middle group by post hoc Tukey test.

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