Parents' Knowledge about First Dental Visit for their Children

Objectives: A preliminary study was conducted to assess parents' knowledge and awareness in relation to oral health care of their children, including the importance of primary dentition, the best treatment for primary dentition, reason to bring the child to dental clinic, and when should be the first visit. Methods: A self-administrated questionnaire was distributed to ninety six parents when they attended the Pediatric Dental clinic (Faculty of Dentistry, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia). The collected information was analyzed using frequency distribution and percentage analysis. Results: Fifty percent of parents reported that first dental visit for their children should be in the third year while others (37%) thought it should be in the six years. Dental check up (58.3%), treatment (32.3%) and emergency (9.4%) were the main reason to bring the child for the dental clinic. Nearly half of participants(47.9%) thought that restoration is the best treatment for primary teeth, whereas (37.5%) of parents prefered extraction as the best treatment, they thought primary dentition will be replaced by permanent one. Although (82.3%) of parents recognized the importance of primary dentition, only (12.5%) of them knew that first examination should be by 12 months of age. Conclusions: It can be concluded that most of the parents knew the importance of primary teeth but were unaware of the recommended time for first dental visit. The simple way of increasing the awareness of parents is distributing instructive information in dental and medical centers emphasizing the overall pediatric oral health care and importance of the first dental visit by year one of child's age according to the recommendation of American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry.