Assessment of oral health literacy of principal caregivers and its association with dental caries in Mexican disabled pediatric patients

Abstract

Aim: To assess oral health literacy (OHL) of principal caregivers (PC) and its association with dental caries in Mexican disabled pediatric patients (DPP). Methods: 40 disabled patients and their PC were recruited from the pediatric dentistry Clinic (UAS) and the Center of Rehabilitation and Special Education of the Institute for Integral Development of the Family in Sinaloa, Mexico. Spanish Oral Health Literacy Scale (SOHLS) was used fo r the OHL assessment of PC. DPP were subject to clinical examinations to observe the mean number of decaye d, missing, or filled teeth through the DMFT index. Disabilities were classified in neuromotor, auditive and language, visual, intellectual, or multiple. To estimate OHL differences, the variable was divided into 3 categories according to the obtained score: low (0-16), medium (17-22), or high (23-29). For the logistic regression model, the variable was categorized on 2 according to ANOVA results: lower (0 -22) and high (23-29) to estimate the association between PC low OHL and DMFT percentual increase. Results: Regarding DPP, there were no differences in age expressed in years (12.47(±8.16) (p=0.673)), DMTF (0.34(±0.26) (p=0.673)) or the number of teeth (23.32(±5.29) (p=0.653). Besides, no differences were found in PC age expressed in years (41.22(±8.91) (p=0.795)), PC scholarship expressed in years (3.95(±8.91) (p=0.128)) or PC OHL (22.27(±3.99) (p=0.205)). The logistic regression model categorizing OHL on high (>22) and low (≤22) found 0.97% more risk to be a PC with low OHL per percentual unit of DMFT inc rement (p=0.041). Conclusions: The OHL level of PC is significantly associated with DPP ́s high result in the DMFT.

Keywords

• caregivers
• dental caries
• dentistry
• literacy