Parental knowledge, beliefs and behaviours for oral health of toddlers residing in rural Victoria

Abstract

Background: Little is known about the oral health of children under the age of four years. The determinants of early childhood caries (ECC) in this young age group are also not well understood despite a growing recognition that early interventions may deliver the greatest benefits. The aim of this study was to examine the oral health‐related knowledge, attitudes and reported behaviours of parents of children aged 12–24 months living in rural areas of Victoria, Australia.Methods: A robust theoretical model was utilized to identify oral health‐related behaviours and their antecedent and reinforcing conditions within the context of this specific population group. Two hundred and ninety‐four parent/child dyads were recruited through their maternal and child health nurses as part of a larger intervention trial. Parents completed a self‐report questionnaire.Results: Knowledge regarding risk and protective factors amongst parents was variable and sometimes at odds with contemporary evidence. Knowledge of the role of early infection with S. mutans was very low, with high levels of behaviours that may promote early transmission reported. Tooth cleaning was reported by most parents at least sometimes, however a large proportion lacked confidence and this was significantly related to the frequency of the cleaning. Parents were confused about the fluoride status of their water supplies. Most parents believed fluoride toothpaste reduced the risk of ECC but did not know whether it should be used with toddlers.Conclusions: The results of this study have implications for efforts to prevent dental decay in this very young age group. Health care professionals other than dentists need support to provide information and promote confidence with regard to optimal fluoride exposure. Attention should also be given to the contribution of early contact with particular bacteria in oral health education and promotion programmes.

An evaluation of the knowledge of pediatric nurses about the oral health status of newborns and pediatric oral health care

“…[11,12,16,17] In addition, the current evidence supports the idea of improving knowledge quality of these health professionals with different education strategies.…”

“…[10,11] In order to enhance the chance of preventing oral healthrelated issues as well as raising awareness about normal and pathological dental conditions among children, primary health care nurses have been considered a cost-effective worker group in oral health screening and education procedures for regular dental visits. [11][12][13][14][15][16][17] In general, basic education principles of nursing students and/or nurses do not contain specific oral health issues, which results in inadequate knowledge on the oral health care of newborns and children. [11,[13][14][15][16][17] Since pediatric nurses could have responsibilites for preventive dentistry and recognition of caries progression from the first eruption of primary teeth, as well as monitoring the development of oral and maxillo facial region in the pediatric population [4,8,[12][13][14][15][16][17] professional education strategies might be implemented into their basic education courses which could also be beneficial to manage the oral health profile of newborns and children.…”

Early Childhood Caries: Parent’s Knowledge, Attitude and Practice Towards Its Prevention in Malaysia

“…Generally, parents of children with ECC were significantly more likely to disagree that nighttime nursing was safe, proving that knowledge among parents is high, but not reflected in the dental health of their children (Schroth et al, 2007). In another study, parents had good knowledge of diet related risk factors, but half the children where given bottle at bedtime (Gussy et al, 2008). However, poor knowledge was noted in Wu-Han, China (Petersen & Esheng, 1998) where only 42% of mothers knew that dental caries is caused by sugar while only 39% of mothers in Romania (Petersen et al, 1995) knew that dental caries is caused by sugar.…”

“…Caregivers of children with ECC were more likely to believe that caries could not affect a child's health while those who believed primary teeth are important had children with significantly less decay (Schroth et al, 2007). Parental knowledge about infant oral health was found to be lacking in many studies (Blinkhorn et al, 2001;Gussy et al, 2008;Hoeft et al, 2010;Orenuga & Sofola, 2005;Singh & King, 2003). The factors associated with decreased knowledge and poor attitudes among primary caregivers of children include low socioeconomic status (Dykes et al, 2002;Finlayson et al, 2007), living in deprived areas (Silver, 1992;Williams et al, 2002), ethnicity or immigrant status (Skaret et al, 2008;Williams et al, 2002), lack of further education (Szatko et al, 2004;Williams et al, 2002), high caries status in the children (Szatko et al, 2004) and difficult past dental experience (Tickle et al, 2003) among others.…”

Effectiveness of a short web-based film targeting parental knowledge and behavior with respect to the oral health of children (Preprint)

“…However, none of these studies had a control group and they did not explore whether the effects persisted after a longer period of time. The advantages of supplying information in a film are, first, that knowledge is transferred and, second, that the desirable behavior is demonstrated by actors (mechanisms of role modeling) [15][16][17]. A web-based film that demonstrates oral health behaviors to parents could therefore be an effective way of educating parents about adequate oral health behaviors.…”