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Oral health in pregnant Chinese women in Singapore: A call to go beyond the traditional clinical care

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posted on 2023-06-12, 03:24 authored by Preethi Balan, Hong-Gu He, Fengchunzhi Cao, Mun Loke Wong, Yap-Seng Chong, Violeta LopezVioleta Lopez, Shu-E Soh, Chaminda Jayampath Seneviratne
Objective: To examine the correlations among oral health knowledge, attitude, practices and oral disease among pregnant Chinese women in Singapore. Methods: A descriptive correlational study was conducted in pregnant Chinese women in Singapore. A questionnaire was used to collect data of oral health knowledge, attitude and practices. Plaque index scores were used to assess the oral health of subjects. Results: A total of 82 pregnant women participated in the study, out of whom 38% showed adequate oral health knowledge, nearly half of them achieved adequate and oral health attitude and practice scores while 34% had good Plaque index scores. The lower income group had higher experience of self-reported dental problems during pregnancy than those in the higher income group (p = 0.03). There were significant positive correlations between scores of oral health practice, attitude and oral health knowledge levels. The plaque index scores negatively correlated with the oral health practice scores (p = 0.02). Conclusions: Our findings provided evidence that oral health knowledge, attitude and practices among Chinese pregnant women were not optimal which implies the importance of promoting their oral health during pregnancy through the improvement of knowledge and attitudes. This would facilitate formulation and implementation of appropriate oral health promotion policies.

History

Volume

6

Issue

3

Start Page

1

End Page

12

Number of Pages

12

eISSN

2227-9032

ISSN

2227-9032

Publisher

MDPI

Publisher License

CC BY

Additional Rights

CC BY 4.0

Language

en

Peer Reviewed

  • Yes

Open Access

  • Yes

Acceptance Date

2018-07-06

External Author Affiliations

Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences; National University of Singapore

Era Eligible

  • Yes

Medium

Electronic

Journal

Healthcare

Article Number

77

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