Consciousness of Parents Regarding Oral Health of Their Child

Survey of Parents of Pre-school Age Children

Abstract

To investigate parent awareness of their child's dental health in comparison to the actual situation and utilize those results for future health guidance, we conducted an awareness survey of parents of pre-school aged children (3-6 years old). The following results were obtained.

1.As for caries prevention, the most common response by both fathers and mothers regarding what parents most care about besides brushing teeth was “regular checkups”. In addition, “None” was a common response from fathers.

2.For finish polishing for their children, 95.2% of the mothers and 56.8% of the fathers regularly performed that. In homes with working mothers, a higher percentage of fathers performed finish polishing, though the percentage was quite small for fathers as a whole. Also, most fathers performed finish polishing without special awareness of its effects.

3.The highest interest of both mothers and fathers regarding the oral cavity of their child was for “decayed teeth”, followed by “tooth alignment and bite”.

4.Among child-rearing practices that parents are involved in, “finish polishing” showed the highest frequency with both fathers and mothers.

Our findings led us to better understand the awareness of parents regarding the dental health of their children, as well as differences between fathers and mothers. We consider them to be quite meaningful and will accordingly modify our oral hygiene instructions. Despite the recent trend of a shift of child-rearing from primarily the mother to both parents in Japan, the interest of the fathers regarding the oral cavity of their children was lower than that of the mothers. Our results indicate the need for improvements in methods used for checkups and oral hygiene instructions by family dentists to encourage fathers to participate more in finish polishing for their children.