Role of health beliefs in patient compliance with preventive dental advice.

Lack of patient compliance with health recommendations is a well known fact. What is less well understood are the reasons why. This study used the Health Belief Model (HBM) to investigate the role of patients' health beliefs in patient compliance with preventive dental advice. A questionnaire was constructed to explore the four beliefs of "seriousness", "susceptibility", "benefits" and "self-efficacy" and this was administered to 43 adult patients attending the conservation department of a large teaching hospital for routine examination. Patients were seen twice, 1 month apart. At visit one, plaque was disclosed and plaque and bleeding scores were recorded. Patients were taught the modified Bass technique of plaque removal. Plaque and bleeding scores were repeated on visit two, 1 month later. Compliance was defined as any reduction in these scores at visit two. The health belief of "benefits" taken as a single variable showed a significant correlation with compliance and the combined beliefs of "susceptibility" and "benefits" were also found to be significantly related to compliance.