Abstract

The aim of this study was to assess Saudi mothers’ knowledge and attitude towards primary teeth health and dental caries and the impact of level of education on their knowledge and attitude. Four hundred, self-reported questionnaires were distributed to mothers of children aged 1 to 6 years. They contained questions expressing knowledge and attitudes towards the health of primary teeth and the effect of educational level on knowledge and attitude of oral health. Data were processed and analysed by means of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) using Chi-square test. The significance was taken for P-value ≤ 0.05. Mothers had good knowledge about dietary practices and oral hygiene practices. While more than half of them do not know when to start child mouth cleaning, first visit to dentist and transmissibility of caries. Half of the respondents do not know the contribution of frequent sweet consumption to dental caries. Our study showed a strong correlation between level of education and oral health knowledge (P-value = 0.00) whereas effect of knowledge on mothers’ attitude was insignificant (P-value ≤ 0.6). Mothers showed some degree of knowledge about certain aspects of primary teeth health and caries, while poor knowledge is shown in other aspects. We recommended broadening prevention concept.

Key words: Early childhood caries (ECC), oral health knowledge, oral health attitude.