title: Brushing behavior among young adolescents: does perceived severity matter.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Oral health is a basis for general health and well-being and affects physical and psychological aspects of the human life. The aim of this study was to determine the power of the health belief model in general and the role of perceived severity and its components in particular in predicting tooth brushing behavior among young adolescents.
  
  
  METHODS
  This was a cross sectional study of a sample of female students grade four in Rasht (a metropolitan in north Iran) in 2012. A systematic random sampling method was applied to recruit students. They were asked to respond to a designed questionnaire containing items on brushing behavior based on the health belief model. In this study for the first time perceived severity and perceived barriers were divided into two parts, perceived subjective and objective severity and perceived physical and psychological barriers and were treated as independent variables. Logistic regression analysis was performed in order to identify the variables that predict the desirable behavior (brushing twice a day or more).
  
  
  RESULTS
  In all 265 female students were entered into the study. Of these, only 17.4% reported that they were brushing at least twice a day (desirable behavior). The results obtained from the logistic regression analysis indicated that perceived objective severity (OR = 0.37, 95% CI = 0.21- 0.66, P = 0.001) and feeling less perceived psychological barriers (OR = 2.60, 95% CI = 1.50- 4.52, P = 0.001) were the significant predicting factors for brushing twice a day.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings suggest that perceived objective severity and perceived psychological barriers play important role in adapting a desirable health behavior among young adolescents.
authors.forename: Parisa
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kasmaei
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Education, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran. aminsh_f@modares.ac.ir.
authors.forename: Farkhondeh
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Amin Shokravi
authors.forename: Alireza
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hidarnia
authors.forename: Ebrahim
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hajizadeh
authors.forename: Zahra
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Atrkar-Roushan
authors.forename: Kambiz
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Karimzadeh Shirazi
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Montazeri
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003731:Dental Caries / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D007492:Iran; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D010465:Perception; D012306:Risk; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014099:Toothbrushing / Q000523:psychology*