A descriptive study on the contributing factors of Early Childhood Caries of 5 years children in Kangnung city

The purpose of this study was to get descriptive statistics of the contributing factors for early childhood caries and to predict the relationship of dietary, behavior factors and health status factors of the mother and child at pregnancy and after birth. 411 first caregivers of 5-year-old children in 12 kindergartens in Kangnung city were selected by stratified random cluster sampling. They were asked to fill out questionnaires and 364 of them responded. The obtained results were as follow: 1. Over the three-Fourth of children used nursing bottle or had breast feeding habit beyond the age of 1 year. 2. 8.7% of respondents didn't recognize the necessity of the preventive measures immediate after eruption of primary tooth, and only 35.1% replied that they had begun tooth cleaning. 3. Over 90% of children brush the teeth more than once per day. But over half (614%) of them brush their teeth without parents instruction. Sixty percent of children eat between the meals as often as 1-3 time(s) a day and the remainder at any times. 4. The first time of dental visit was for most children (87%) at over 3 years, recommending the earlier dental visit. Notwithstanding the rate of routine dental visit experience was relatively high(40.2%), implicating positive parents' attitude about oral health at Kangnung area. 5. The relationships between oral health state of the parents and the variables such as the timing of the first tooth cleaning, the frequency of brushing, the time of first dental visit, and the reason of first dental visit were not statistically significant. Together, there was no statistically significant difference between rural and urban area, private and public kindergarten, and boy and girl(, p>.05 or Fisher's exact test, p>.05).