Assessing the effects of oral health knowledge and behaviours of mothers on oral health of preschool 4-6 years old children.

Abstract

Background- Pre-school child health has always been one of the most important milestones for lifelong health research. Also, the knowledge and behaviour of the parents, especially mothers, affects children's health. The variable household-related factors and mothers, in particular, are considered to be the main role models that can improve pre-school children behaviour. Objective To determine the knowledge and behaviours of the mothers and their impact on pre-school 4-6 years old children oral health status. Method A 27 subjects’ questionnaire was prepared using previous questionnaires assessing mothers’ knowledge and behaviours towards oral health. Children's oral and dental health was examined by the researcher and scores were calculated using dmft (decayed, missing, filled, tooth) index. Accordingly, the effect of knowledge and behaviour of the mothers on their children dmft score was analysed. Chi-Square and logistic regression tests were used in the statistical analysis. Results The study population consisted of 261 pre-school children and their mothers. Which included 126 males (48.3%) males and 135 females (51.7%). The mean mothers’ oral health knowledge score was found to be 4.24  1.94. The children oral health examination through dmft scoring showed that 71.3% of children had experienced dental caries. the mean value for dmft score was 2.32  2.39. Our study showed that the mother's cumulative oral health knowledge score has a statistically significant relationship to the children oral health status. The higher the mother's oral health knowledge scores the lower their children dmft scores (p=0.001). Conclusion Mothers oral health knowledge and dental health indices in our study are lagging behind the developed countries and the WHO goal for the 21st century showing an urgent need to improve the effectiveness of preventive care in oral health programmes.