Journal of Dental Medicine

Background and Aims: Considering the role of primary teeth in children's dental health and the importance of parental role on children dental health the purpose of this study was to determine the knowledge and practice of parents of 3-9 year-old children regarding to maintaining primary teeth.
Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive-analytical study was conducted on the parents referring to Ahwaz dental school in 2017. Using a questionnaire, the participants' demographic characteristics, knowledge and performance regarding maintaining of the primary molars were collected. The percentage of correct responses was considered as the level of knowledge and performance. Analysis of K-square and Spearman and Pearson correlation coefficient and T-test were employed to determine the relationship between the participants' knowledge and performance and their demographic variables. The significance level was P<0.05.
Results: 176 parents completed the questionnaire. The mean parental knowledge score was 57.42±7.45
(range 15-75), and the mean practice score was, 9.42±1.86 (range 4-12). No relationship was found between the parents’ age, sex, knowledge, and performance. The knowledge of parents who had a history of referral to the dentist, fewer children (rs=0.428), higher education (rs=0.490) and higher income (r=0.226) was significantly better (P<0.001). Also practice increases with higher awareness of parents (r=0.549) (P<0.001). The parents’ practice was significantly related to the history of referral to the dentist, and having fewer children (rs=0.320), higher education (rs=0.369), and higher income (r=0.253) (P<0.01).
Conclusion: The findings of this study showed that the knowledge and practice of the parents about primary teeth were moderate. Regarding the important role of primary teeth in children's health, increasing the parents’ knowledge on the maintenance of primary teeth is essential.

Background and Aims: Nowadays, the requirement of any policy-making at the national and regional level is to know the level of knowledge of people about oral health and ways to prevent dental caries.  This study examined the habits, actions and economic level of elementary school students in Qazvin city in 2017-2018.  Also, the effects of peer group social network on behaviors related to oral health and obesity was investigated in order to find the way for interventions making it more effective in this social group. Materials and Methods: In this descriptive-analytical study, 145 students participated. They were in the 3nd and 6th grades of elementary school in the academic year of 2017-2018. The questionnaire used in this study had 20 questions and 4 main sections. The main parts of this questionnaire included demographic characteristics, behavior and habits related to oral health, oral health knowledge of students and families, and socio-economic status. Data were collected through clinical examinations and through valid questionnaires and evaluated using SPSS and Excel software. Results: According to the results of Pearson's correlation analysis, a significant correlation was observed between the health knowledge scores of individuals and their friends between both groups of casual and close friends (P<0.01). The correlation between the knowledge of individuals and close friends was significantly stronger (P<0.01). Also, there was a significant relationship between socio-economic status and behaviors related to oral health (P<0.05). There was also a significant positive relationship between the number of times close friends brushing their teeth in a social network (P<0.001). This connection was not observed in the friends’ network. Conclusion: This study determined that close friends can be effective in determining the oral hygiene behaviors of elementary school students.