Knowledge, attitude and practices among caregivers, regarding early childhood caries, within the Great Kei Sub-District
| dc.contributor.author | Smit, Danica Jean | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-11-25T08:13:52Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2025-11-25T08:13:52Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2024 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Introduction: Caregivers’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices, regarding primary teeth and early childhood caries (ECC), have been found to play a role in the development of ECC (Njoroge, 2007; Baskaradoss, 2018). Almost daily, public dentists working in the Great Kei Sub-District in the Eastern Cape are required to extract teeth on young children (under the age of six). This study was done to ascertain the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of caregivers of young children in this area, and to discover whether there was an association between these factors and the decayed-, missing- and filled teeth (dmft) scores of their children. Literature review: According to a South African study by Mohamed and Barnes (2018), the caries prevalence of children under six was 71.6%. Untreated carious primary teeth may result in pain, infection, masticatory and sleeping issues, malnutrition, and altered growth and development (Setty, 2016). Caregivers have been shown to be the primary source of information regarding the knowledge children develop and put into practice regarding their oral health (Schroth et al., 2007). It has been found that a gap exists between what caregivers know and what they practice; caregivers may agree with the importance of regular dental checkups, yet their children may still exhibit carious lesions (Njoroge, 2007). One of the main reasons forwhich children are hospitalized is decay of the primary dentition (Peerbhay et al., 2012). Aniland Anand (2017) determined that prenatal education of parents should be the starting point for the prevention of ECC. Aim: The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between the knowledge, attitudes, and practices amongst caregivers of young children, regarding early childhood caries, within the Great Kei Sub-District. | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/10566/21464 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.publisher | Univeristy of the Western Cape | |
| dc.subject | Caries prevalence | |
| dc.subject | Knowledge | |
| dc.subject | Attitude | |
| dc.subject | Practices | |
| dc.subject | Caregivers | |
| dc.title | Knowledge, attitude and practices among caregivers, regarding early childhood caries, within the Great Kei Sub-District | |
| dc.type | Thesis |