Oral health status of children is dependent on their parents' knowledge, especially their mothers. As a result, mothers should have adequate awareness about oral hygiene status about oro dental health. The objective of this study was to assess the oral health knowledge of mothers who referred to health centers supervised by Shahid Beheshti Medical Sciences University regarding children orodontal health in 2009-2010.
Methods: In this descriptive cross-sectional study, 384 women were selected by stratified random sampling technique. Study was conducted by means of a self-administrated questionnaire. The questionnaires included demographic data, oral hygiene practices of the mothers, and their knowledge regarding different aspects of the child oral health status. The caries incidence was determined by DMFT index in the women. The correlation between studied variables was analyzed by Spearman correlation coefficient, and the effects of demographic factors on the individuals attitudes were subjected to Kruskal-wallis, ANOVA, Mann-Whitney U and Student tests (p<0.05).
Results: According to answers, mothers showed fairly high awareness towards oral health aspects of their children. This knowledge was significantly influenced by the mothers' level of education and occupation. No significant correlation was perceived between the child birth order and the mothers' knowledge, regarding to the mean sum scores or the separate questions of knowledge. Significant reverse correlations were found between mean sum knowledge scores and D component of DMFT index while the correlation between the F component of DMFT index and the mean sum knowledge scores were direct and significant.
Conclusions: The participated mothers showed fair knowledge about their children's oral hygiene status; however, because of mothers' enormous influence on children’s orodental health, various educational programs must be designed in order to increase their level of knowledge and awareness.