Evaluation of awareness among mothers about the factors responsible for the causation of early childhood caries-a cross-sectional study

Early childhood caries (ECC), because of its ubiquitous nature and stubborn resistance to resolution, remains as one of the most common disease affecting very young children in today’s era. Aim: To evaluate the awareness among mothers about various factors responsible for the causation of ECC. Methods: A questionnaire based survey was conducted on 200 mothers of children aged 1 to 6 years residing in Sullia, Karnataka. A structured questionnaire was given to each mother in the language they could read and those who were not able to read, were explained. Then the information collected were recorded and values were statistically analyzed. Results: The mean age of the mothers participating in this study was 35 years.60% of the participants had education till university level,48% of the participants were aware of the fact that sleeping with milk bottle or juice causes ECC and further analysis of this study showed that participant awareness for the causes of ECC are in the following order: Prolonged breast feeding (52%), nutritional deficiency (40%), smoking during pregnancy(25%), iron deficiency anemia (21%), preterm birth and low birth weight(20%), Conclusion: Hence it was concluded that the mothers are moderately aware of the factors that are responsible for causing ECC.