COMPARISON OF CAREGIVERS' PERCEIVED AND NORMATIVE ORAL HEALTH NEEDS OF PRESCHOOL CHILDREN IN IBADAN

Abstract

Caregivers play a pivotal role in the oral health behaviour of their preschool children due to the total dependence of preschoolers on their caregivers. A high level of unmet oral health needs has been reported in preschool children and this has been attributed to caregiver characteristics particularly their perception of their children's oral health status and needs as perception of health status is a motivator for utilisation of health services. Furthermore, self perceived needs are being considered as an alternative to clinically determined needs in research surveys, there is therefore a need to determine the level of correlation between these two. However, there is paucity of data as regards this correlation in preschool children. Thus, this study was carried out to compare the caregivers' perceived oral health needs with normative oral health needs of preschoolers Four hundred and thirty preschool children equally distributed between the public and private primary schools in Ibadan and their caregivers participated in this cross sectional study. Data regarding the sociodemography, oral health behaviour of pre-schoolers and caregivers' perceived oral health status and oral health needs of their pre-schoolers was obtained from an adapted WHO questionnaire which was filled by the caregivers. The oral health needs of the preschoolers were derived from an oral health examination. The data obtained was analysed using SPSS 20.0. and the level of significance was set at p< 0.05 The mean age of the preschoolers was 4.29±0.75 and about forty nine percent of them were males. Majority (74.9%) of caregivers perceived their preschooler had no oral health needs however, oral health examination of the pre-schoolers revealed a high level (77.2%) of unmet oral health needs in these children. No correlation was found between caregivers' perceived oral health needs and normative oral health needs of preschool children(r=0.04) In conclusion, there was a high level of unmet oral health needs in preschool children in Ibadan, however, caregivers overestimated the oral health status and underestimated the oral health needs of their preschoolers. This therefore reveals a need to educate caregivers of preschoolers on the oral health of their children, teaching them how to recognise common oral anomalies and encouraging them on the importance of maintainance of good oral health in their preschool children. The study also revealed the need for the establishment of a dental home among the studied population