Introduction: Cariogenic food intake and oral health knowledge, attitude and practices (KAP) of parents are contributing factors that influence the oral health status of children. As there is lack of a validated questionnaire in Bahasa Melayu (the Malay language) to measure the factors, this cross-sectional study was carried out to establish a linguistically valid and reliable cariogenic food frequency questionnaire (M-CFFQ) and oral health KAp questionnaire (M-OHKApQ) in Bahasa Melayu, for parents of children aged 6-11 years in Kota Bharu, Kelantan. Methods: Relevant questionnaires in English were selected and translated to Malay language. This process included forward translation, synthesis, backward translation and consolidation to produce the preliminary drafts of M-CFFQ and M-OHKApQ. pretesting was conducted on ten parents of children from a primary school in Kota Bharu by face-to-face interview. The findings were reviewed to produce the final versions of M-CFFQ and M-OHKApQ. A test-retest reliability study was undertaken involving 49 parents. The participants were asked to answer the final M-CFFQ and M-OHKApQ versions twice, within a 7-14 days interval. Data collected were entered into IBM SppS version 22 software and analysed using the Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) test. Results: Semantic, idiomatic, experiential, conceptual as well as content and face validity issues were successfully resolved. Fifteen categories of food/drinks for M-CFFQ and 26 items/questions M-OHKApQ were produced. The total ICC values achieved for M-CFFQ and M-OHKApQ were 0.887 and 0.807, respectively. Conclusion: The M-CFFQ and M-OHKApQ appeared to be linguistically valid and reliable with excellent test-retest reliability (ICC>0.80).

Background: Dental caries in primary teeth is a serious oral health concern among children. It can lead to detrimental impacts on a child's growth, development, and quality of life. Therefore, this cross-sectional study aimed to examine the prevalence of dental caries and its associations with nutritional status, sugar and secondhand smoke exposure among pre-schoolers. Methods: A total of 26 pre-schools in Seremban, Malaysia were randomly selected using the probability proportional to size sampling. Dental examination was performed by a dentist to record the number of decayed teeth (dt). Weight and height of the pre-schoolers were measured. The mother-administered questionnaire was used to gather information pertaining to the sociodemographic characteristics and secondhand smoke exposure. Total sugar exposure was calculated from a 3-day food record. Results: Among the 396 participating pre-schoolers, 63.4% of them had at least one untreated caries, with a mean ± SD dt score of 3.56 ± 4.57. Negative binomial regression analysis revealed that being a boy (adjusted mean ratio = 1.42, 95% CI = 0.005-0.698, p = 0.047), exposed to secondhand smoke (adjusted mean ratio = 1.67, 95% CI = 0.168-0.857, p = 0.004) and those who had more than 6 times of daily total sugar exposure (adjusted mean ratio = 1.93, 95% CI = 0.138-0.857, p = 0.013) were significantly associated with dental caries among pre-schoolers. Conclusion: A high prevalence of dental caries was reported in this study. This study highlights the need to reduce exposure to secondhand smoke and practice healthy eating behaviours in reducing the risk of dental caries among pre-schoolers.

In several nations, caries in pre-school children remain a significant oral health issue. In an outbreak period such as the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), remote contact and education aimed at the prevention of oral diseases and the preservation of children’s oral health are more relevant than ever. Currently, the amount of published applications is far higher than the published scientific studies while the problems of usability remains vulnerable. The goal of this paper was to comprehensively document the phase of development and usability testing of a mobile application for diet and oral health, namely Gigiku Sihat, which was primarily intended to be used by parents and guardians of pre-school children. The mobile application was developed using the System Development Life Cycle principle. Apart from searching for the available oral health application on Android platform, the initial requirement gathering process consisted of situational analysis, concept generation, content development, and features and functional requirement determination. The mobile application design and implementation evolved at each phase before being finalised. Gigiku Sihat was successfully developed in the Bahasa Malaysia. Finalised Gigiku Sihat was installed on mobile devices to determine the usability using translated and validated System Usability Scale questionnaire namely Skala Kebolehgunaan Aplikasi Mudah Alih (SKAMA). The mean score usability with score of 68 and above was deemed to have good usability. This study found that Gigiku Sihat mean (SD) usability score was 77.0 (14.18). The results were promising as they showed that Gigiku Sihat had a good usability. Thus, the development of this mobile application focusing on diet and oral health served as a new source of oral health education and provided a necessary foundation in developing future improved mobile application development for parents in the prevention of early childhood caries.

Background: The positive smoker identity construct, which was based on West’s PRIME Theory, affected the smoking prevalence, quit attempts and cessation success. A validated questionnaire which could measure this rich and complex construct may facilitate prediction models of successful cessation. We aimed to develop and validate a questionnaire that assesses positive smoker identity based on West’s PRIME Theory. Method: The initial item pool was developed based on a theoretical framework, empirical literature, existing scales and expert review. The questionnaire was conveniently distributed to 100 smokers. Exploratory factor analysis was utilized to explore domains in the questionnaire. Construct and criterion validity, internal consistency and reliability of the domains were analyzed. Results: The final positive smoker identity questionnaire (PSmoQi) has 26 items under four internally-consistent and reliable domains: Contributory factors, contextual and temporal patterning, identity related to smoking, and behaviour in relation to smoking. The full scale demonstrated good internal consistency (∝ = 0.78), acceptable convergent and divergent validity, and good concurrent validity with the smoker self-concept scale. Conclusion: The current study provides fundamental evidence for the PSmoQi as a valid instrument in research related to smoking cessation and interventional strategy. The PSmoQi contained validated domains which could measure almost a full spectrum of smoking cessation components.

AimsTo investigate the oral health and nutritional status of children with cerebral palsy (CP).Methods and resultsOral health assessment included dental caries and dental plaque maturity scores (DPMS) while the nutritional assessment included children's height‐for‐age Z‐score (HAZ), body mass index‐for‐age Z‐score (BAZ), mid‐upper‐arm circumference (MUAC), nutrient intake, cariogenic food frequency (CFF) and daily sugar exposure (DSE). Ninety‐three CP children were recruited. The prevalence of caries was 81.7% (95% CI: 72.7%‐88.3%). The median (IQR) of the DMFT and dft scores were 0.5(4.0) and 3.0(8.0), respectively. Most of the participants had acid‐producing plaque (90.3%), severely stunted (81.4%), and 45% were severely thin with acute malnutrition. Intakes of calcium, iron, zinc, vitamin A, vitamin D and total fat were below 77% of the Recommended Nutrient Intakes for Malaysian children (RNI 2017). Nine types of cariogenic foods/drinks were consumed moderately, and DSE indicated that 45% of the children were at moderate risk of dental caries.ConclusionUntreated dental caries, severe stunting and thinness were prevalent, and cariogenic foods/drinks were consumed moderately suggesting a moderate risk of caries. Therefore, controlling cariogenic food intake is crucial, but monitoring daily nutrient intake is needed for the optimum growth of children with CP.