Mothers’ awareness of their children’s dental status : a study among a group of mothers of children diagnosed with early childhood caries

Abstract EN

Mothers' dental awareness has an important impact on their children's oral health and oral health-related behavior.

The aim was to evaluate mothers’ awareness of their children’s dental health status and assessing the effect of different socio-demographic variables on their awareness.

A total of 124 healthy children diagnosed to have caries were included together with their mothers.

The mothers answered a selfadministrated questionnaire regarding different socio-demographic variables, their children dental status and dental history.

Most of the mothers included were aware of their children’s dental status ; 70 (56.5 %) were aware that their children have caries.

Significantly, more Saudi mothers were aware that their children have caries compared to non-Saudi mothers (p = 0.04).

Working mothers were also significantly more aware (p = 0.007).

Most of the mothers 90 (65.3 %) reported that they did not take their child to a dentist before and in those who did, pain was the main cause of their children first dental visit.

Significantly, Saudi working mothers and higher (p = 0.037) percentage of mothers who took their child to a dentist were aware of their child dental status.