KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICE OF MOTHERS REGARDING THEIR OWN AND CHILDREN'S DENTAL HEALTH-A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL BASED STUDY
Abstract
Background: Mothers play a basic role in the dental health of children. They decide whether their children need dental treatment or not. The aims of this study were to assess mothers' knowledge and practices regarding children's dental health and to determine association of mothers own attitude and their attitude towards children's dental health. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted in the Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH), Karachi, Pakistan in which 207 mothers completed a self-administered structured questionnaire. Inclusion criteria were respondents having children between 2 and 5 years of age and exclusion criteria were respondents having physical or mentally handicapped children. SPSS-16 was used for data analysis. Chi Square test was used to determine association between maternal own dental attitude and their attitude and knowledge about children dental health with p‰¤0.05 as statistically significant. Results: Majority of the mothers used to visit dentists for themselves in the case of problems and they thought the same for their children (p<0.001). A statistically significant association also existed between mothers and children tooth brushing frequency (p<0.001). Conclusions: Mothers visitingAga KhanUniversityHospital, lack sufficient knowledge regarding timings of the children's first dental visit and the importance of limiting frequency of in-between meals snacks consumed by their children.
Keywords: Mothers' dental health, children dental health, dental visit, knowledgeReferences
Talekar BS, Rozier RG, Slade GD, Ennett ST. Parental perceptions of their preschool-aged children's oral health. J Am Dent Assoc 2005;136:364-72.
National Diet and Nutrition Survey. UK, 1995.
Guidelines on infant oral health care. American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry Guidelines. In: American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry Reference Manual 2002-03.
Cleaning your gums and teeth (oral hygiene). Chicago, IL: American Dental association; 2005.
Grindefjord M, Dahllöf G, Wikner S, Hojer B, Modeer T. Prevalence of mutans streptococci in one-year-old children. Oral Microbiol Immunol 1991;6:280-3.
Meurman P, Pienihakkinen K, Eriksson LA, Alanen P. Oral health programme for preschool children: a prospective, controlled study. Int J Paediatr Dent 2009;19:263-73.
Finlayson T, Siefert K, Ismail A, Sohn W. Psychosocial factors and early childhood caries among low-income African-American children in Detroit. Community Dent Oral Epidemiol 2007;35:439-48.
Nainar SM, Straffon LH. Targeting of Year One dental visit for United States children. Int J Paediatr Dent 2003;13:258-63.
American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry Encourages Parents to 'Get it done in Year One' for a Life time of Healthy Smiles. CHICAGO May 6/10. PRNewswire-USNewswire.
Al-Shalan TA. Factors Affecting Saudi Parents' Perception of their Children's First Dental Visit. J Contemp Dent Pract 2003;4:54-66.
Al-Shalan TA, Al-Mousa BA, Al-Khamis AM. Parents' attitude toward children's first dental visit in College of Dentistry, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Saudi Med J 2002;9:1110-4.
Slayton RL, Warren JJ, Levy SM, Kanellis MJ, Islam M. Frequency of reported dental visits and professional fluoride application in a cohort of children followed from birth to 3 years. Pediatr Dent 2002;24:64-8.
Blinkhorn AS, Wainright YM, Hollowwy PG.. Dental health knowledge and attitudes of regularly attending mothers of high-risk, pre-school children. Int Dent J 2001;51:435-8.
Koerber A, Graumlich S, Punwani IC, Berbaum ML, Burns JL, Levy SR, et al. Covariates of tooth-brushing frequency in low income African American children. Pediatr Dent 2006;28:524-30.
Astrom AN. Parental influences on adolescents' oral health behavior: Two-year follow-up of the Norwegian Longitudinal Health Behavior Study participants. Eur J Oral Sci 1998;106:922-30.
Vallejos-Sanchez AA, Medina-SolÃs CE, Maupome G, Casanova-Rosado JF, Minaya-Sanchez M, Villalobos-Rodelo JJ, et al. Sociobehavioral factors influencing tooth brushing frequency among school children; J Am Dent Assoc 2008;139:743-9.
Adair PM, Pine CM, Burnside G, Nicoll AD, Gillett A, Anwar S, et al. Familial and cultural perceptions and beliefs of oral hygiene and dietary practices among ethnically and socio-economicall diverse groups. Community Dent Health. 2004;21(1 Suppl):102-11.
Kalyvas DI, Taylor CM, Michas V, Lygidakis NA. Dental health of 5-year-old children and parents' perceptions for oral health in the prefectures of Athens and Piraeus in the Attica County of Greece. Int J Paediatr Dent 2006;16:352-57.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Journal of Ayub Medical College, Abbottabad is an OPEN ACCESS JOURNAL which means that all content is FREELY available without charge to all users whether registered with the journal or not. The work published by J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad is licensed and distributed under the creative commons License CC BY ND Attribution-NoDerivs. Material printed in this journal is OPEN to access, and are FREE for use in academic and research work with proper citation. J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad accepts only original material for publication with the understanding that except for abstracts, no part of the data has been published or will be submitted for publication elsewhere before appearing in J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad. The Editorial Board of J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad makes every effort to ensure the accuracy and authenticity of material printed in J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad. However, conclusions and statements expressed are views of the authors and do not reflect the opinion/policy of J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad or the Editorial Board.
USERS are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.
AUTHORS retain the rights of free downloading/unlimited e-print of full text and sharing/disseminating the article without any restriction, by any means including twitter, scholarly collaboration networks such as ResearchGate, Academia.eu, and social media sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Scholar and any other professional or academic networking site.