Communication about dental health in Norwegian adults

The present study describes the amount and distribution of communication on dental health issues in Norwegian adults. The empirical data stem from a representative sample of Norwegians aged 15 and above, and were collected by means of personal interviews by the poll organization Norges Markedsdata in 1983. Edentulous subjects were excluded, and the study group finally comprised 1225 subjects. The dependent variable - dental communication - was a dichotomy based upon whether or not the respondents had communicated with friends about dental health during the last 6 months. The following independent variables were used: age, sex, marital status, education, use of dental services, number of teeth, knowledge of prevention, information about dental health from dentists and media, use of dental floss and toothpicks. The empirical analysis was performed using contingency table analysis and Multiple Classification Analysis (MCA). Separate analyses were performed for men and women. Significantly more women (27.6%) than men (14.5%) reported dental communication. In addition, the model provided a better fit to the data on women compared to men in terms of R2 (12.5% and 8.9%). These observations can to some extent be accounted for by the existing sex-role pattern. The only predictor which showed a consistent direct effect across sex was whether the respondents had received information about dental health from media. This means that reference to the interpersonal context of mass communication perhaps best describes the complex transactional interplay of media and interpersonal sources in dental health matters.