Effect of education on the parents’ awareness and attitude to the role of space maintainers in the child’s mouth

Background and objective: Early loss of deciduous teeth can lead to space constraints and malocclusion. One of the preventive interventions is usage of space maintainers. This study aimed to examine the effect of an educational intervention on the level of awareness and attitude of parents about space maintainers in children.Method: This quasi-experimental interventional study was performed on 200 parents referring to the pediatric ward of Kerman faculty of dentistry. The data collection instrument was a researcher-made questionnaire, capturing demographic information along with the section related to awareness (14 items) and attitude (10 items). For training the participants, an educational pamphlet was used. After three weeks, the questionnaire was re-completed by the parents. The data were analyzed by SPSS 26 through paired t-test, independent t-test, analysis of variance, Tukey post hoc test, and linear regression.Results: A total of 63.5% of fathers and 81% of mothers participating in this study aged between 25 and 40 years. The mean age of the children was 6.71 years with the standard deviation of ±1.06. The parents' awareness score increased by 4.96 units post-education compared to the pre-education, and the attitude score improved by 7.09 units. Higher levels of the father's education (P=0.01), better economic status (P=0.046), and better post-education awareness (P=0.0001) were among the significant factors affecting the attitude becoming more positive post-education.Conclusion: The results of the present research indicated that educational intervention contributes to significant improvement in the awareness and attitude (P=0.0001). With increase in the level of awareness, the attitude also became more positive. The results also revealed that education had a greater impact on boosting the attitude compared to awareness.