Relationship of Parental Knowledge and Attitude with Oral Health Status of Children in Karachi East

Objective: This study aims to determine the relationship of parental knowledge and attitude towards their child’s oral habits and health status, and evaluate whether educational status of parents plays a significant role and the level of motivation of parents for child’s regular dental checkup.
Design: Descriptive, cross-sectional study.

Place and Duration of Study: Dental OPD of Dow International Dental College and Fazaia Degree College, April 2014, Karachi East, Pakistan.

Methodology: Parents of preschool and primary school going children. A self-designed closed ended type questionnaire was provided in both English and Urdu language. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS version 16. The relationship between variables was done by frequency distribution and Chi-square test.

Results: A total of 200 completed questionnaires were considered for final analysis. 61% of the parents had children of preschool age and 38.5% were primary school going. 56.5% of the subjects had education up to Graduation or higher level. Majority of the parents belonged to Middle class 63%. 82-96% of parents were aware of preventive role of tooth brushing and fluoride. 95.5% considered regular dental checkup important.74-95% of parents showed positive attitude towards factors important for maintenance of oral health. But 64.5% of parents still did not take their child for regular visit to dentist.

Conclusions: The study shows that parents have relatively higher knowledge and positive attitude regardless of educational and socioeconomic status, however children still seemed to practice habits which affected their oral health therefore preventive dental programmes should not only focus on educating but developing personal skills in both the parents and young children and improve parents’ attitude on importance of early preventive dental visit.