The Effect of Label and Medication Package Insert Reading Habits of Parents on their Children’s Oral Dental Health

Objective: The aim of this study is to evaluate the relationship between packaged product label and medication package insert reading habits of parents and their children’s oral/dental health.

Study design: A questionnaire including demographic characteristics and label/insert reading habits was filled by parents of 301 children who referred to the Pediatric Dentistry Department. The children were examined intraorally and dmft/DMFT and ICDAS II scores were recorded. The data were evaluated statistically.

Results: Label and medication package insert reading were found in 71.4% and 88.4% of the parents, respectively. Label reading increased as the age of the child and the number of children in the family increased. Medical package insert reading increased as the mother’s education and SLS/paraben knowledge increased. Decrease of 1 point in ICDAS II resulted in the 1.410 times increase in the rate of medical package insert reading of the parents.

Conclusion: It is concluded that improving the label and medical insert reading rate of the parents would be effective for providing better oral and dental health for their children.

Oral health; Caries; Packaged product; Label; Medical package insert

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