Oral health knowledge, attitudes, behaviours and status among international post-secondary students: a scoping review
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Objective: This scoping review aims to review and synthesize existing literature on oral health knowledge, attitudes, behaviours, barriers, and status among international post-secondary students. Methods: Using the Arksey and O'Malley framework, MEDLINE, Embase, Dentistry & Oral Sciences Source, CINAHL, Web of Science, and Scopus databases were searched in June 2024 for selected oral health and international student keywords. Manual searches of reference lists and citations were also conducted. Original research studies in English language were included, with no geographical or date limitations. Using Rayyan, duplicates were removed, and then two authors independently screened available literature according to eligibility criteria; inconsistencies or disagreements were resolved through a third author. Results: The search yielded 984 articles. After removal of duplicates and those inconsistent with our inclusion criteria, 14 articles remained. In total, 13/14 articles used a cross-sectional design implementing surveys or interviews; only 4 articles presented objective clinical measures (e.g., DMFT, objective periodontal measures). Some included articles provided information about dietary habits relevant to oral health; however, information captured was limited. Overall, compared to the domestic students, international students were reported to have poorer oral health status; more gaps in their knowledge, attitudes and behaviours regarding oral health; and were also less likely to obtain routine oral health care. Conclusion: International students may face significant challenges in managing and optimizing their oral health vs. domestic students due to various factors (e.g., acculturation stress, finances, diet, academic stress etc.). Post-secondary institutions may want to consider focusing on supporting and empowering international students to access oral health care on a regular basis through targeted interventions. To design impactful interventions, future community engaged research is needed to better understand the perspectives of international students regarding their oral health status, knowledge, attitudes, behaviours, needs, and aspirations.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.013 | 0.047 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.005 | 0.003 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.020 | 0.017 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".