Development and Testing of A Caries Risk Behavior Assessment form for Parents of 2-5-year-old Children
Objective: To develop a caries risk behavior assessment form for parents of 2-5-year-old children and to test the assessment form’s effectiveness.
Materials and methods: This study was divided into two steps. The first was to develop a caries risk behavior assessment form for parents after reviewing the literature on caries risk behavior. In the second, the caries risk behavior of 2-5-year-old children was compared between experimental and control groups. The experimental group consisted of thirty-one pairs of parents and 2-5-year-old children that were treated at the Pediatric Dental Clinic, Chiang Mai University. These parents assessed caries risk behavior using the developed assessment form by themselves. The control group consisted of thirty pairs of parents and 2-5-year-old children that were treated at the Pediatric Dental Clinic, Chiang Mai University. The parents’ assessment of caries risk behavior was assessed by the researcher, using a modified American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD) caries risk assessment form. The plaque index of all children in both groups was recorded using modified Silness and Loë, Podshadley and Haley, and Wilkins forms. Data from all experiments were collected three times at one-month or greater intervals between March and August 2014. A general profile of parents and children, behavioral changes and plaque index score changes were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The caries risk behavior of the experimental group was analyzed using Repeated ANOVA. The caries risk behavior of the control group was analyzed using the Friedman test. The caries risk behavior between experimental and control groups were analyzed using the unpaired t-test. The plaque index was analyzed using the unpaired t-test and Repeated ANOVA.
Results: This study revealed that the parents were capable of using the caries risk behavior form and assessing caries risk factors by themselves. This caries risk behavior form consisted of five parts (20 items). The first part, which measured microbial and sharing factors, included three items. The second part, which measured milk consumption factors, included four items. The third part, which measured fruit, vegetable and snack consumption factors, included four items. The fourth part, which measured tooth-brushing behavior, included four items. The fifth part, which measured other factors, included five items. The overall score for each part was plotted by the parents on a modified Rifkin, Muller and Bichmann participation measurement form, which, when completed, permitted the parents to interpret and to understand caries risk behavior by themselves. The effectiveness of the control group was compared with that of the experimental group. Significant changes in caries risk behavior in the experimental group between the three experiments were identified only in nine items out of 20 (45%), whereas significant changes in caries risk behavior in the control group were identified in only two out of three parts but only in three items out of 7 (42.9%) of the caries risk behavior changes. However, there were no statistically significant differences between the experimental and control groups in the mean overall scores of caries risk behavior or in the plaque index scores.
Conclusions: There were no statistically significant differences between the experimental and control groups in caries risk behavior. However, the developed caries risk behavior assessment form for parents was effective in motivating parents to take care of their children’s oral health by themselves.
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