Correlations of Mothers’ Oral Health Knowledge and Verbal Oral Health Literacy with Children's Oral Health Behaviors in a Daycare Center

The aim of the study was to confirm the relation of subjective periodontal symptoms to objective periodontal index by comparing personal periodontal evaluation and actual oral health.

This study was conducted by receiving consents from parents with their children attending the childcare center attached to D. University in Busan. In this study, SPSS23was used to analyze data, and statistical significance was determined with the significance test at P≤0.05.

Mothers and children's brushing habits and tongue brushing had similar behavior patterns, but the quantity of toothpaste was slightly higher for mothers than for children. Of the mother's brushing behaviors, the more brushing per day, the higher score of oral health knowledge became, and as for brushing method, the score of oral health knowledge was a little higher when the rolling method and horizontal method were used than when the brushing method of mixing the vertical method with various methods was used, which was statistically significant. Children's brushing behaviors, brushing method, and tongue cleaning had a negative correlation, and children's brushing method and mother's oral health knowledge had a positive correlation.

The mother's oral care behaviors have an impact on the formation of children's right habit and medium-to-long-term oral care, it is judged that it would be necessary to provide oral care education experience opportunity for mothers and make institutional preparation so that expert oral health activities can consistently be made for children in daycare centers and kindergartens.