Prevalence of oral health care and problems among Rift Valley university health sciences students in Adama, South East, Ethiopia

Objective: Oral hygiene's is the practice of keeping the mouth healthy and clean by brushing and flossing to prevent teeth decay and gum disease. Oral diseases are directly associated with poor practices of oral hygiene and bad breath. In Ethiopia there is no documented studies conducted on the knowledge and practices of oral health among health sciences students.Methods: A quantitative facility -based cross sectional study was employed among 422 health science students that were selected by systematic random sampling from registry. Data entry, cleaning was made using Epi Data version 3.1 and analysis was performed by using SPSS 16.Results: The study showed that 93.1% reported experience of the participants clean their teeth. Of which only 49.5% brushed with tooth pastes. About 80.3% of the participants experienced oral problems in their life. 43.8% had gum bleeding, 31.5% had dental plaques. Among 40.8% who had tooth ache, 31.5% of them had tooth decay, 68% had lost one of their tooth due to illness. This study indicated that risk of dental caries was higher for male 38% (95% CI=31, 45.7) than female 26 %( 95% CI=20.8, 32.4). Predictors of dental caries were eating chocolate, being male and presence of dental plaques.Conclusion: This study indicated that oral health problems were common among study participants. This need appropriate health information dissemination in all schools that provide academic services in Ethiopia.Keywords: dental caries, oral care practices, rift valley university, ethiopi