Attitudes towards oral health among parents of 6-year-old children at risk of developing caries

作者：Vermaire J H^*; Hoogstraten J; van Loveren C; Poorterman J H G; van Exel N J A

来源：Community Dentistry and Oral Epidemiology, 2010, 38(6): 507-520.

DOI：10.1111/j.1600-0528.2010.00558.x

• attitudes
• children
• oral health
• parents
• Q-methodology

Objectives:
Parental attitudes are likely to play a role in achieving and maintaining a desired level of oral health in children. To be useful in individually delivered caries prevention programmes, parental attitudes should be identified at individual level. Q-methodology has been proved successful in identifying attitudes in a wide range of disciplines but in dentistry Q-studies are scarce. In this study Q-methodology was used to identify parents' prevailing attitudes towards the oral health of their children.
Methods:
Thirty-nine parents ranked 37 statements regarding the dental health behaviour they apply to their 6-year-old child. They later explained their rankings during a short interview. In Q-methodology, rather than reporting one average composite attitude and opinion, various combinations of opinions and attitudes concerning these statements are identified using by-person factor analysis.
Results:
Based on their beliefs, attitudes and cognitions, five categories of parents were found: (i) conscious and responsible, (ii) trivializing and fatalistic, (iii) appearance-driven and open-minded, (iv) knowledgeable but defensive and (v) conscious and concerned.
Conclusions:
Q-methodology appears to be a fruitful way to structure the complexity of parents' opinions and attitudes towards their children's dental health. It appears that Q-methodology provides comprehensive clusters of individual attitudes, based on various levels of responses to a wide range of questions. The five identified profiles may be useful in developing tailor-made prevention strategies in caries prevention.

• 出版日期2010-12