PARENTAL AWARENESS OF RECEIVING THEIR CHILDREN’S FIRST DENTAL VISIT: A HOSPITAL-BASED STUDY

Abstract

Background and Aim: First dental visit depends on the parent’s awareness due to sociodemographic features that affects age and reason for the first dental visit and varies in different populations. So, aim of this cross-sectional study was to evaluate the age and most common reasons for children’s first dental visits in Turkish children. Material and Method: Parents of the children, who were attending to their first dental visits without any previous dental experience, were included in the study. First part of the survey included child’s age-gender, parent’s age-education level, number of siblings and monthly family income. Second part included seven questions, while five questions were about age and reasons of first dental visit and two questions were about who/where guided to parents for first dental visit. Onethousand-fivehundred-fiftyfive surveys were evaluated to determine age, most common reasons, parent’s education level and guidance about first dental visit. Obtained data were analyzed with chi-square test while significance level was accepted as p