Mothers’ Oral Health Literacy and its Relationship with Children’s dmft: A Cross-Sectional Study in an Iranian Population

Background: Mothers are mainly responsible for their child’s oral and dental health during childhood and must acquire adequate oral health literacy especially regarding the primary dentition. Therefore, the present study investigated mothers' oral health literacy level and its relationship with children's oral health status.Methods and Materials: This descriptive cross-sectional study, included 195 children with 3-6 years of age and their mothers, who referred to the Pediatric Dentistry Department of Yazd Dental Faculty in 2024. Children were divided into four age groups; 3, 4, 5 and 6 year olds. Mothers ' oral health literacy was assessed using the OHL-AQ (Oral Health Literacy-Adult Questionnaire). Each mother obtained an oral health literacy score, with 100 being the highest score possible. Children’s dmft was recorded through clinical examination. Data were analyzed using SPSS25 software and Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis, Spearman's correlation coefficient, and multiple linear regression tests. The significance level was considered to be 0.05.Results: Mother’s average oral health literacy score was 60.11±51.78. The average dmft index of children was 4.06±1.35. The average number of decayed teeth (d) was 2.23±1.40, filled (f) was 1.05±0.86, and missing (m) was 0.77±0.86. In all four age groups, there was a positive relationship between the mothers’ oral health literacy score with dmft index, the number of decayed teeth, and the number of missing teeth, and there was a negative and significant relationship with the number of filled teeth in their child (r= -0.807, P<0.0001). Oral health literacy and children's age were predictors of children's dmft index (P<0.001).Conclusion: In mothers with higher oral health literacy, the average dmft index, the number of decayed and missing teeth in children was lower, and the number of filled teeth was greater.