Epidemiological survey of early childhood caries in Cambodia

BMC Oral Health

Table 3 Oral health knowledge and behaviours by health knowledge and behaviours by location^a

	Total N^d (column %)	Phnom Penh N (row %)	Kratie N (row %)	Ratinakiri N (row %)
Oral Health Knowledge
Primary teeth are important	3116 (80.2)	834 (82.7)	1257 (79.8)^c	1025 (78.9)^c
Tooth decay is preventable	2671 (68.8)	784 (77.8)^bd	1094 (69.4)^bc	793 (61.0)^cd
Tooth decay can be prevented by
Tooth brushing	2304 (59.3)	666 (66.1)^bd	937 (59.5)^bc	701 (54.0)^cd
Fluoride toothpaste	370 (9.5)	361 (35.8)^bd	3 (0.2)^b	6 (0.5)^d
Avoiding sweet food	248 (6.4)	217 (21.5)^bd	15 (1.0)^b	16 (1.2)^d
Visiting the dentist	927 (23.9)	9 (0.9)^bd	594 (37.7)^bc	324 (24.9)^cd
Preventing in other ways	438 (11.3)	30 (3.0)^bd	298 (18.9)^bc	110 (8.5)^cd
Tooth decay is caused by:
Sugar	1794 (46.2)	834 (82.7)^bd	959 (60.9)^bc	1 (0.1)^cd
Bacteria	37 (1.0)	7 (0.7)^bd	3 (0.2)^bc	27 (2.1)^cd
Inherited/genetic	104 (2.7)	2 (0.2)^bd	33 (2.1)^bc	69 (5.3)^cd
Other cause	1163 (30.0)	144 (14.3)^bd	579 (36.7)^bc	440 (33.9)^cd
Brushed the child’s teeth yesterday	1847 (49.9)	494 (51.1)^bd	705 (47.1)^bc	648 (52.4)^cd
Used toothpaste when brushing	1361 (36.8)	260 (26.9)^bd	662 (44.2)^bc	439 (35.5)^cd
Mean number of sweet drinks/day	1.9 (SD2.6)	3.1 (2.3)^b	1.5 (3.0)^bd	1.4 (1.7)^d
Mean number of packaged snacks/day	3.3 (2.7)	2.5 (1.7)^b	4.0 (3.4)^bcd	3.1 (2.4)^cd

^aN represents the number of participants who agree (eg. The number of participants to state that primary teeth are important) or who or list an item (eg. Tooth brushing) in response to open ended questions about oral health knowledge and behaviours
^b,c,d Means that in groups within the same row with a common super script letter have a statistically significant different (P = < 0.05;χ² or t-test)

ISSN: 1472-6831