A dental registration intervention for 0-2 year olds: maternal responses

The most deprived wards of Trusts in the Eastern Health and Social Services Board (EHSSB) have only 5% of 0-2 year olds registered for dental care. To promote health equality the EHSSB commissioned a dental registration intervention to be provided by health visitors (HVs) for mothers of neonates in the most deprived wards. Objectives: To assess the mothers' oral health knowledge, attitudes and behaviours by demography and before and after the intervention. Methods: A convenience sample of 37 mothers was recruited at the 8-week visit by HVs. HVs provided the dental registration intervention at their 7 and 18-month visits. Baseline (8-week) and follow-up (7, 18 and 24-month) questionnaires were administered to assess mothers' knowledge, attitudes and behaviours. Data were entered onto SPSS v12.0.1. X2-analysis and t-tests were used to assess mothers' knowledge, attitudes and behaviours by demography and one-way-repeated ANOVA examined changes with time. Results: At baseline 67% of mothers knew about diet and oral health but only 5% knew about dental registration. Rural mothers had more positive attitudes (P=0.04) to toothbrushing. Older mothers (P=0.04) and mothers with more than one child (P=0.04) had more positive attitudes to diet. 54% of mothers had received advice on care of babies' teeth. At follow-up, there was an overall increase in mothers' registration knowledge (P<0.01) and their knowledge about diet and oral health (P<0.01) when controlling for Trust, mothers' age and number of children. Mothers had more positive attitudes to the importance of diet (P<0.01) and younger mothers were positive to the importance of early childhood registration (P=0.02) at follow-up compared with baseline. Conclusions: There were improvements in mothers' oral health knowledge, attitudes and behaviours after the intervention. Such dental registration interventions should be targeted at first-time and younger mothers residing in wards of high social deprivation.