The Relationship between Dental Health Care Behaviors of Guardians and Dental Caries of Preschool Children in Pak Thong Chai District

Abstract

The objectives of this descriptive research were to study the relationships between guardian’s characteristic and the guardian’s dental heath care behaviors for preschool children and between guardian’s dental health care behaviors for preschool children and dental caries among preschool children in Pak Thongchai district, Nakhon Ratchasima province. The samples were 337 preschool children and 337 preschool children’s guardians. The data were collected during May – October 2018. Instruments used in this study included oral health examination forms and questionnaires on guardian’s dental health care behaviors for preschool children and demographic information. The descriptive data were analyzed using frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviations. The relationships among variables were analyzed using chi-square tests, Fisher’s exact tests, and Spearman’s correlations.

The results showed that the preschool children had the prevalence rate of dental caries of 74.8 percent while dmft was at 5.5. The majority of the guardian’s dental health care behaviors were at a moderate level (62.3%), followed by a good level (33.8%). The guardian’s characteristics that were significantly associated with the dental health care behaviors of guardian included age (p= 0.005), educational level (p=0.019), and relations with the preschool children (p=0.039). There was a significant association between preschool children’s dental caries and their guardian’s dental health care behaviors (p=0.015). When looking at different dental health care behaviors, it was found that the guardians’ attention on their children’s tooth brushing and appropriate food consumption behaviors had significant negative associations with dental caries (p<0.01). The guardian’s behaviors in checking their children for dental caries was found not associated with the dental caries.