Abstract
1. Background
The main purpose of oral care practices for young children is to prevent dental caries. Oral care practices have 2 components: home care and professional dental care. Home oral care practice involves toothbrushing, which mechanically removes dental plaque and, more importantly, acts as a vehicle to bring the fluoride in the toothpaste to come into contact with the surfaces of the teeth. Fluoride promotes remineralisation of the tooth surface and acts as a key protective factor in the dynamic process of dental caries. Professional dental care involves visiting an oral health professional to seek preventive advice and care. A person who visits an oral health professional regularly tends to have better oral health in the longer term than an irregular (problem-oriented) dental visitor. Hence, by removing dental plaque (the causal agent) and introducing fluoride (the protective agent), children’s oral care practices play a direct role (as a biomedical factor) in the prevention of dental caries. However, oral care practices are influenced by factors that are socioeconomic, environmental, cultural or political. Although these factors can be associated with the experience of dental caries, they are not direct causal agents and need to be mediated by direct factors (such as biomedical factors) to have an impact. The mechanism of these associations remains largely unknown and pathway models have been developed trying to explain the interplay of these factors.
2. Aim of study
This study examines some of the factors that affect the oral care practices in the first 2 years of an Australian child’s life. The factors are the mothers’ sociodemographic characteristics; oral care practices, oral health status, and psychosocial influences.
3. Methods
A secondary analysis of the data from the Study of Mother’s and Infant’s Life Events Affecting Oral Health (SMILE) project was carried out to examine the effects of those factors on children’s oral care practices. Descriptive statistics and bivariate analysis were performed, and a multivariate modelling was undertaken with Poisson regression to control for possible confounders and mediators.
4. Findings
Mothers’ oral care toothbrushing pattern and oral health fatalism were found to be associated with children’s toothbrushing frequency. For the children’s visiting to an oral health professional for check-ups, family size was the only predictor. Mothers born in India appeared to have the most unfavorable oral care practices and oral health. Fewer than half of the mothers considered drinking fluoridated water important. The longitudinal design of this study also showed that mothers’ oral care practices and oral health deteriorated towards the end of the 24-month study.
5. Conclusion
The strong association between favourable mothers’ oral care toothbrushing pattern and favourable children toothbrushing frequency implies that the provision of oral health interventions during the critical period of pregnancy needs to focus on both maternal and child oral care practices instead of solely on the latter. The deterioration of mothers’ oral care practices and oral health during the period between childbirth and 24 months could suggest that the post-partum period could be stressful for the mothers. Further studies are needed to explore the association between favourable mothers’ oral care toothbrushing pattern and favourable children toothbrushing frequency, and if this association is well established, it could determine the most effective approach for oral health education with the mothers of young children.