Department of Psychology, Western Michigan University, 1903 W Michigan Ave., Mail Stop 5439, Kalamazoo, MI, 49008, USA.
University of Kentucky College of Medicine, Lexington, USA.
BMC Oral Health. 2022 Jul 29;22(1):315. doi: 10.1186/s12903-022-02328-6.
Interdental cleaning is recommended by dentists but many people do not floss regularly. The health benefits of interdental cleaning are delayed, and sensitivity to delay is an important factor in many health behaviors. Thus, the present studies explore the relationship between frequency of flossing, and sensitivity to delayed and probabilistic outcomes.
Crowd-sourced subjects were recruited in two studies (n = 584 and n = 321, respectively). In both studies, subjects reported their frequency of flossing and completed delay discounting and probability discounting tasks. Discounting was measured with area under the curve, and linear regression was used to analyze the results.
Findings show that higher levels of delay discounting were associated with less frequent flossing (p < 0.001, both studies). In contrast, probability discounting was not significantly associated with flossing frequency (ns, both studies).
The findings are consistent with prior studies involving other health behaviors such as attendance at primary care and medication adherence. Results suggest that interventions that reduce delay discounting may help promote regular interdental cleaning, and that delay discounting is a more robust predictor of health behaviors than probability discounting. In addition, interdental cleaning appears to be a reasonable target behavior for evaluating potentially generalizable behavioral health interventions. Thus, interventions that are successful in promoting oral health behaviors should be considered as candidates for evaluation in other health behavior domains.
牙医建议进行牙间清洁，但许多人并不定期使用牙线。牙间清洁的健康益处是延迟的，而对延迟的敏感性是许多健康行为的一个重要因素。因此，本研究探讨了使用牙线的频率与对延迟和概率结果的敏感性之间的关系。
在两项研究中（分别有 584 名和 321 名受试者参加，n=584 和 n=321），通过众包方式招募了受试者。在两项研究中，受试者均报告了他们使用牙线的频率，并完成了延迟折扣和概率折扣任务。折扣率用曲线下面积来衡量，线性回归用于分析结果。
研究结果表明，较高的延迟折扣水平与较少使用牙线相关（p<0.001，两项研究均如此）。相比之下，概率折扣与使用牙线的频率没有显著相关性（均无统计学意义，两项研究均如此）。
这些发现与涉及其他健康行为（如初级保健就诊和药物依从性）的先前研究一致。结果表明，减少延迟折扣的干预措施可能有助于促进定期进行牙间清洁，并且延迟折扣比概率折扣更能预测健康行为。此外，牙间清洁似乎是评估潜在可推广的行为健康干预措施的合理目标行为。因此，成功促进口腔健康行为的干预措施应被视为在其他健康行为领域进行评估的候选者。
