title: Challenges of Iranian adolescents for preventing dental caries.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Oral health plays a vital role in people's general health and well-being. With regard to the costly treatments of oral diseases, preventive programs need to be designed for dental caries based on children's perspectives.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of this study was to describe and explore challenges for caring dental health based on children's perspectives.
  
  
  METHODS
  A qualitative design with content analysis approach was applied to collect and analyze the perspectives of students about factors influencing oral and dental care. Eighteen Iranian students in 8 guidance schools were chosen through the purposive sampling. Semi-structured interviews were held for data gathering. In order to support the validity and rigor of the data, different criteria such as acceptability, confirmability, and transferability were utilized.
  
  
  RESULTS
  During data analysis, four main themes developed: "barriers to dental health," "maintaining dental health," "uncertainty in decision-making" and "supportive factors". "Uncertainty in decision-making" and "barriers to dental health" were the main challenges for preventing dental caries among adolescents.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  "Certainty in decision-making" to maintain dental health depends on overcoming the barriers of dental health. Further research is needed to confirm the findings of this study.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Education, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, IR Iran.
authors.forename: Arezoo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fallahi
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Education, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, IR Iran.
authors.forename: Fazlollah
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ghofranipour
authors.affiliation: Department of Nursing, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, IR Iran.
authors.forename: Fazlollah
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ahmadi
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Dentistry, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, IR Iran.
authors.forename: Beheshteh
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Malekafzali
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, IR Iran.
authors.forename: Ebrahim
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hajizadeh
keywords: Dental Caries; Dental Health; Qualitative Research; Student