Child’s dental visits, oral health knowledge and source of dental information among mothers of children with Down’s syndrome in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

The study was conducted to assess the children’s dental visit practices, level of oral health knowledge and source of dental information among mothers of children with Down’s syndrome in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Two hundred and fifty self-administered questionnaires were distributed to the mothers of Down’s syndrome children in three institutions that provided education to children with mental disabilities of which 225 (90%) were returned. The results showed that 57.41% of the children had visited the dentist, 61.9% had their first visit at the age of 4-6 years or earlier and nearly 72% of the children visited the dentist only when they had pain. Mothers with university education were found to make their childrens’ dental visit at an earlier age (P=0.03) and more of the non-working mothers were found to make their childrens’ visits only when in pain (P=0.025). The majority of mothers (97.8%) knew the causes of dental caries, and more than 85% of them recognized the causes of halitosis. More mothers with university education considered dental caries as another possible cause of bad breath (P 0.01). A high percentage ( 89%) of mothers regarded sugar reduction, tooth brushing and dental visits as effective methods in reducing dental caries, but only 45% knew the benefits of fluoride to dentition and 60.8% of those mothers were those with higher educational level (P=0.007). Causes of presence of blood on the toothbrush were recognized by the majority of mothers (92.4%) while about 10% of illiterate mothers did not know the reason of blood on toothbrush (P=0.045) as compared to mothers with other educational levels. Sixty percent of mothers received their dental information from the dentist. Based on the results, overall mothers’ oral health knowledge was considered to be satisfactory, but more dental health education is still needed with respect to the importance of dental visits, role of fluoride and causes as well as symptoms of gingival inflammation.