Purpose: The objective of this paper was to evaluate the relationship between mother’s Sense of Coherence (SOC) and preschool children’s oral health.
Methods: The sample consisted of 42 mothers and their children with ages from 8 months to 5 years old, enrolled in a public day care center in Belo Horizonte city, MG. Mothers answered a retrospective questionnaire concerning questions about their SOC and about their children’s oral hygiene. Children were subjected to dental clinical examination to collect the dmf-t index. These examinations were carried out by one calibrated researcher (Kappa = 0.86) in knee-to-knee position with natural light. Data were analyzed using qui-square test, adjusted odds ratio, and multivariate logistic regression at the significance level of 0.05.
Results: No statistical differences were found between the dmf-t index and child’s gender or oral hygiene (P>0.05), nor with mother’s SOC (P=0.335). Children aged 4 to 5 years old had 7.5 times more chance to have dmf-t ≥1 then children aged 8 moths to 3 years old (P=0.019) independently from the other variables.
Conclusion: In conclusion the mother’s stress adaptability was not associated with her child’s caries experience in this sample.
Key words: Preschool children; oral health; oral hygiene; sense of coherence