Rural Mothers’ Knowledge about Children’s Dental Health in a Developing Country

Abstract

Introduction: Recent epidemiological investigations on dental health among Iranian children revealed that the issue of dental caries is prevalent. According to the dental research in Iran, the general level of dental health, especially among children, is still unsatisfactory. Mothers play a key role in their children’s health behaviour. Aim: To explore the mothers’ knowledge about their children’s dental health. Materials and Methods: A total of 200 mothers of children aged <6 years were enrolled in this cross-sectional study using the convenience sampling technique. A 25-item self-administered questionnaire was used for gathering data. An arbitrary cut-off score of 16 was considered satisfactory. All collected data were entered in SPSS (v. 16.0) software and analysed with descriptive tests and the chi-square test. Results: The mean age of the mothers was 30.8±2.5 years. The mean knowledge score of the participants was 14.2±2.0, and the minimum score was 7.0, while the maximum score was 18.0. Most respondents (58.0%) scored unsatisfactorily at 16 or less. A statistically significant association between the total score of knowledge and demographic characteristics exists (p<0.05). Conclusion: The mothers in the present study did not demonstrate satisfactory knowledge of children’s dental health. Rural parents, especially mothers, need to be educated about their key role as a model for their children and should be encouraged to improve their children’s dental health. Further studies with larger samples are recommended.

Keywords

• dental caries fluoride
• oral health
• rural parents