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Abstract

Statement of the problem: Oral health literacy is a new determinant of preventive dental behavior. Although OHL represents one's ability to understand and process relevant oral health information, other characteristics may modify one's behavior resulting decisions or actions. Psychosocial factors play an important role regarding this decision making of health behavior. Care givers are responsible for a wide range of issues including health promotion, and disease prevention for the children. Children requires more assistance with oral health behaviors, thus their oral health outcomes are more tightly linked to their care giver�s behaviors. This study was carried out to assess the Oral Health Literacy status and to evaluate the role of oral health literacy and psychosocial factors as a determinant of oral health among child caregivers. Methodology: A cross sectional study was conducted in Mohammadpur Preparatory School and Mohammadpur model school of Dhaka city through face to face interview by using semi structured questionnaire among 370 respondents. Oral Health Behavior was measured by 15 additional question. OHL was measured by the Oral Health Literacy Adults Questionnaire (OHL-AQ) which was tested in a pilot study and showed to be reliable and valid (Naghibi Sistani et al., 2013). It contains 17 items in four sections Reading comprehension comprises 6 questions, Numeracy comprises 4 questions assessing ability, Listening comprises 2 questions and Decision-making comprises 5 questions. Findings: About 46.8% were in age group of 31-35 years, and 83.2% were housewife. Majority of the care giver 64.4% had adequate oral health literacy, 28.6% had marginal literacy about oral health and 7.0% of the care giver�s had inadequate literacy. Young aged care givers, those who have adequate oral health literacy and housewives in occupation were brushed their child teeth twice a day more than other care giver. High care giver�s activation measure knowledge and confidence showed more dental visit by them and high CAM-skill showed more brushing frequency twice a day. Conclusion & Significance: Care giver�s psychosocial factors influenced their oral health behavior despite of having adequate oral health literacy. Future studies should consider a range of these psychosocial factors that has not been studied more, but have shown to be important psychosocial determinants of health behaviors. Differential health education program on Oral Health Literacy for the caregivers through using BCC materials and methods could be organized.

Biography

Mithun Gupta was a student of Masters of Public Health in NIPSOM, she has been involved with the research projects of social issues of health and also working in the Mayer hashi-II project as a Assistant programme officer. She is involved with research team of Mayer Hasi-II project funded by USAID too.