Oral health literacy of Korean adults

Hae-Jin Lee; Kee-Wan Chang

doi:10.11149/jkaoh.2017.41.2.102

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Lee and Chang: Oral health literacy of Korean adults

Original Article

Journal of Korean Academy of Oral Health 2017; 41(2): 102-109.

Published online: 30 June 2017

DOI: https://doi.org/10.11149/jkaoh.2017.41.2.102

Oral health literacy of Korean adults

Hae-Jin Lee¹, Kee-Wan Chang^1,²

¹Department of Preventive & Community Dentistry, Chonbuk National University Dental School, Jeonju, Korea.

²Institute of Oral-Bio Science, Chonbuk National University Dental School, Jeonju, Korea.

Corresponding Author: Kee-Wan Chang. Department of Preventive & Community Dentistry, Institute of Oral-Bio Science, Chonbuk National University Dental School, 567 Baekje-daero, Deokjin-gu, Jeonju 54896, Korea. Tel: +82-63-270-4034, Fax: +82-63-270-4035, prevdent@chonbuk.ac.kr

Received 9 March 2017 Revised 20 June 2017 Accepted 22 June 2017

(open-access):

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

We used a questionnaire to measure the oral health literacy of Korean adults. We then evaluated the validity and reliability of the questionnaire.

Methods

This questionnaire was developed using a literacy assessment tool from the National Institute of Korean Language, Republic of Korea. The survey was composed of instructions for dental treatment and oral health information. The components were sub-classified into three cognitive processes (realistic, deductive, and critical domains). Of the 337 university students who received the questionnaire, 84.3 percent responded. We calculated the reliability of the questionnaire using Cronbach's α, to assess the item discrimination and difficulty as well as effectiveness of distracters.

Results

We found that the reliability of the 24 items in the questionnaire was 0.89. The mean item discrimination and difficulty values were 0.53 and 0.71. The percentage of correct answers was higher than the effectiveness of the distracters in all items. The mean number of answers to the oral health information data (72.1) was higher than that to dental treatment instructions (63.9). The mean number of answers to the items in the realistic domain (76.1) was higher than that to the items in the deductive (69.4) and critical (65.9) domains. Neither gender nor university major had a significant effect on the percentage of correct answers.

Conclusions

Sixty percent of university students were found to have the government-recommended level of oral literacy. Therefore, better oral health education is required to ensure that all individuals meet government-recommended levels.

Keywords: Adults, Korean version, Oral health literacy

Figures and Tables

Table 1

Cronbach's α of subcategories by domains

^*No.: number of items.

Table 2

Cronbach's α, difficulty and discrimination of all the items

^*No.: item number, CP: cognitive processes, CID: Cronbach's a If item deleted, Dif: difficulty, Dis: discrimination.

Table 3

Response rate (%) of answers by individual items

^*No.: item number, EOD: effectiveness of distracters, Bold type: percentage responded with correct answer

Table 4

Oral health literacy scores by level (N=337)

Table 5

Average scores of oral health literacy by domains

LA: Liberal arts, NS: Natural science, OHL: oral health literacy, OHI: Oral health information, DTI: Dental treatment instruction. CP: Cognitive processes.

^*P<0.05; Between liberal arts and natural science groups.

Table 6

Spearman's rank correlation by subcategories (N=337)

^**P<0.01.

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