Oral Hygiene Practices, Knowledge, and Self-Reported Dental and Gingival Problems with Rural-Urban Disparities among Primary School children in Lilongwe, Malawi
Table 3
Distribution of study participants in relation to knowledge about causes, symptoms, and prevention of dental caries and gingival disease by sociodemographic characteristics in percentages.
Oral condition
Age group (years)
Gender
Residence
Standard
Parents’ education
11–12 years (n = 172)
13–14 years (n = 237)
Male (n = 193)
Female (n = 216)
Urban (n = 209)
Rural (n = 200)
Lower (n = 127)
Upper (n = 282)
≤1° (n = 149)
≥2° (n = 260)
Dental caries
Causes
92.4
92.0
93.8
90.7
94.3
90.0
89.8
93.3
87.2
95.0
Symptoms
65.1
77.6
72.5
72.2
64.1
81.0
76.4
70.6
83.2
66.2
Prevention
84.9
86.1
88.6
82.9
89.0
82.0
80.3
87.9
79.2
89.2
Gingival disease
Causes
90.7
94.1
92.7
92.6
89.8
94.0
91.9
93.5
94.6
91.5
Symptoms
83.7
86.5
86.5
84.3
84.2
86.5
86.6
84.8
86.6
84.6
Prevention
94.2
90.3
93.2
90.7
95.2
88.5
90.6
92.6
89.9
93.1
≤1°: primary school education and below; ≥2°: secondary school education and above. Statistically significant differences between the categories: = , = , and = . No asterisk: statistically not significant (NS).
