The relationship between personality traits as measured by the Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI-J) and oral health behaviors

Abstract

[Purpose] The personality of individuals should be taken into account when providing dental hygiene instruction. However, the personality assessment indices used in previous studies have many questions and are time-consuming to answer. Therefore, the Japanese version of the Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI-J) was used in this study. We examined the relationship between the five personality traits (Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness) and oral health behavior.

[Subjects and Methods] The participants were a total of 202 students enrolled in the Faculty of Dentistry at the Institute of Science Tokyo in the 2023 academic year. A questionnaire was administered to the subjects, asking them to respond to questions about their demographics, oral health behaviors, and personality traits according to the TIPI-J. Four items related to oral health behaviors (i.e., toothbrushing frequency per day, use of interdental cleaning tools, regular dental checkups, and whether they followed tooth brushing instructions) were used as dependent variables, and the above five personality traits were used as explanatory variables, and age, sex, grade, and department were used as adjusting variables. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed using a Poisson regression with robust error variance.

[Results] There were 105 participants in the analysis. Multivariate analysis showed that the higher the level of agreeableness (Prevalence Rate Ratio (PRR): 0.59; 95% Confidence Interval (CI): 0.42-0.82) and the higher the level of conscientiousness (PRR: 0.65; 95% CI: 0.49-0.87), the smaller the percentage of respondents who brushed their teeth three or more times a day compared to those who brushed their teeth twice a day or less. On the other hand, the higher their level of conscientiousness, the more they received regular dental checkups (PRR: 1.42; 95% CI: 1.08-1.90).

[Conclusions] The results of this study revealed that agreeableness and conscientiousness were associated with oral health behaviors among the dental students surveyed, suggesting that taking personality traits into account can help achieve effective oral health instruction.