The relationship between American women's preventive dental behavior and dental health beliefs

The data collected from a national family dental survey on wives of white American families were used to examine the relationships between the wives' toothbrushing, flossing and preventive dental visits and their health beliefs. A statistically significant canonical correlation (rc = 0.436, P less than 0.001) demonstrated that American women's success or failure to engage in preventive dental behavior was related to their health beliefs. The dental visit, as opposed to toothbrushing and dental flossing, had the highest level of predictability with structure coefficient of 0.936. Perceptions of salience and barriers were more powerful predictors (structure coefficients 0.721 and -0.757, respectively). The correlation accounted for about one-fifth of the variance of preventive dental behavior. Further research is needed to extend these findings to both sexes and all races.