Strategic Questions to Promote Use of Auxiliary Cleaning Tools from the Viewpoint of Consumer Behavior and Awareness of Oral Hygiene

Abstract

It has been reported that the maintenance of the health of the mouth and teeth plays an important role in improving the quality of life. However usage rate of auxiliary cleaning tools such as essential dental floss, interdental brush, and part for toothbrush should be estimated low from the viewpoint of maintenance of the mouth and teeth related health. Then, the authors investigated the consumers' awareness of mouth and teeth and actual use of auxiliary cleaning tools in order to promote products' development and construction of information to encourage the use of ancillary equipment. As a result, 5 factors, i. e., “unhealthy teeth”, “oral care focus”, “mouth discomfort”, “worry about the public eye” and “awareness teeth weak” were extracted by factor analysis of awareness and attitude items. The relationship was observed between the usage of auxiliary cleaning tool and other some variables: “oral care focus” factor, subjective health feeling, life satisfaction, and so on. It was suggested that the desirable strategy is to transmit information such as the effect of the usage of auxiliary cleaning tool on life satisfaction and health awareness, and importance of regular checkups by the dentist. Additionally, there were observed not a few cases that people with weak teeth did not use auxiliary cleaning even if they were conscious of the bad condition of the teeth. It can be concluded that steadily delivering information to the people of low consciousness is one of the most important subjects in the consumer education relevant to oral health care.