Background: Oral self-examination refers to looking for symptoms of disease in the mouth. Studies carried out so far in the field of Mouth Self-examination (MSE) have mentioned this technique as a way to screen for precancerous and cancerous lesions. The current study was aimed at examining the patterns of MSE of the oral mucosa in patients referred to the oral medicine department. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 165 patients. The questionnaire employed in this study included 21 items related to demographic characteristics and MSE patterns, and was finally analyzed by chi-square and Fisher’s exact tests after confirming the validity and reliability of the questionnaires, as well as the data obtained from completing the questionnaires. Results: The majority of respondents were female (60.6%), and 97.5% of them had at some point performed MSE. In 75.2% of cases, MSE was performed through observation in the mirror, with 91.9% of patients noticing changes in their mouths. After discovering changes in their mouths, 87.6% of them experienced anxiety, and 59.6% thought of the possibility of cancer in the mouth. It should be noted that only in 13% of the examined patients did the final diagnosis confirm the presence of a malignancy. There was a significant relationship between the respondents’ personal perception of their depression or anxiety and thinking about the possibility of mouth cancer (P<0.05). Conclusion: The present research may be considered a preliminary study, the results of which introduce intermittent and frequent MSE as a possible factor for the occurrence or exacerbation of anxiety and cancerphobia in patients for the first time, and its confirmation necessitates further studies. Furthermore, since the patients of this community perform MSE at a higher-than-expected percentage, future studies are recommended to investigate the participants’ psychological profiles.
Alaee et al. (2026) studied this question.