Children's oral health and parents’ education status in Benghazi, Libya: a cross-sectional study
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37376/ljd.v8i2.7152Keywords:
Oral hygiene, Questionnaire, Dental health, Child, Education, ParentsAbstract
Aim: The study aims to evaluate the impact of parents’ education on the promotion of child dental care.
Methods: Data were collected via a questionnaire survey among parents who brought their children to the Pediatric Dental Department of the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Benghazi, Libya. The data were logged and analyzed using IBM-SPSS for Windows version 29.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL). Frequencies and percentages were measured to assess the influence of parental education on the dental knowledge of their children’s oral care.
Results: More than two-thirds (69.2%) of parents sought dental care for their children when they expressed pain. More than half of parents (59%) reported the importance of deciduous teeth and its impact on successor teeth. Only 16% started brushing when the first primary tooth erupted, and 40% of their children brushed at least twice a day. In addition, only 39% of parents knew the correct time of the first permanent molar eruption. The frequency of parents who reported the correct total number of primary teeth, preferred treatment of primary teeth rather than extraction and asked their children to brush once daily increased with increasing the parents' education levels.
Conclusion: The present study displayed that a high parents’ educational level does not directly subscribe to good oral health care for their children. The parents need further attention by presenting more programs dealing with dental health which will be useful in improving their children’s oral health.
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