Knowledge, Cognition and Behaviour of the Parents and the State of Dental caries of Preschoolers living in Pusan Province

부산지역 유치원 아동의 우식치 실태와 부모의 구강보건지식에 관한 연구

This study was performed to evaluate the importance of parents, knowledge, cognition and behaviour about dental health care on the development of dental caries in preschoolers. Subjects were comprised of 170 preschoolers collected from three preschoolers placed in Pusan and Kimhae area and study period were 6 months from January, 2000. Examination on the preschoolers' dental health and questionnarie survey on parents' knowledge, cognition and behaviour about dental health care were conducted. Collected data were analyzed by chi-square test and t-test using SAS program. Dental caries was so prevalent as the rate of 73.5%. And, the rate was different by the area(p=0.001), and increased with preschooler's age(P=0.004). The parents gain the knowledge about dental health care mainly from dentist or dental hygienist(32.9%), newspaper, magazine booklets(26.5%), TV and VTR tape(20.0%), etc, but rarely from school health education(4.7%). Caries prevalence was significantly lower in case of regular brushing than that of insufficient brushing(p=0.002) and in case of consistently informing brushing time to their children(p=0.014). This results showed that the dental health care for preschoolers is insufficient and the most important factor for caries prevention is regular brushing. And it seemed that the parent's concern and knowledge play an important role for the prevention of preschooler's dental caries. Dental health education would be focused on the parents, especially for the practice of preventive behavior by preschoolers themselves.