“Level of knowledge about oral health hygiene of parents of children under 5 years of age in the Manú parish, Saraguro canton, province of Loja”

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.22533/at.ed.1594382417049

• Palavras-chave: Educación; Higiene dental; infantes; prevención; promoción.

• Keywords: Education; Dental hygiene; infants; prevention; promotion.

• Abstract:

  In the parish of Manú there is a high prevalence rate of oral pathologies in children and pregnant women, so it is essential to act through a set of actions to reduce their prevalence. The objective of this study was to evaluate the level of knowledge about oral hygiene of parents of infants under 5 years of age and pregnant women in this parish, before and after the application of an oral health program, aimed at promotion and prevention. The study carried out is qualitative, transversal, descriptive and comparative. Two validated surveys were applied and the data were processed in the SPSS v.28.0 statistical program. Obtaining the following results: prior to the application of the education program there was 100% lack of knowledge, and after it an increase in the level of knowledge was evident, with a total average of 96.6% correct answers. According to the Kolmogorov Smirnov normality test, it indicates that the results are not parametric, there are significant differences between the results of the pre- and post-Education surveys. The non-parametric Wilconson test shows a significant change, resulting in P value = 0.000000 being less than 0.05. Furthermore, McNemar's non-parametric test indicates that the treatment applied to improve the level of knowledge worked, the P value = 0.000000 is less than 0.05. Concluding that the oral hygiene education program improved parents' knowledge, allowing the transmission of a culture of oral health promotion and prevention that contributed to improving the quality of life of this intervention group.