KNOWLEDGE OF PARENTS' DENTAL AND ORAL HEALTH MAINTENANCE WITH THE STATUS OF ORAL HYGIENE OF CHILDREN WITH MENTAL RETARDATION

Abstract

Background: Children with mental retardation have trouble taking care of their own dental health, making parental involvement extremely important in directing, offering understanding, reminding, and providing facilities for children to be able to take care of their teeth and oral hygiene. Objective: The purpose of this research was to examine the dental hygiene status of children with mental retardation at SDLB-C Yayasan Bahagia Tasikmalaya City in connection to their parents' knowledge of dental and oral health maintenance. Methods: A cross-sectional study based on a series of observations. Fifteen families with children who have mental disabilities were selected for the study through a purposive sampling method. A questionnaire and the Spearman rank correlation coefficient from the OHI-S.test are utilized for analysis. Results: The test's significance value was 0.029 0.05, indicating that there is a statistically significant association between parental education and dental health in children with mental impairment. Conclusion: Parents' knowledge has a strong relationship with the oral hygiene status of mentally retarded children at SDLB-C Yayasan Bahagia Tasikmalaya City, with coefficient correlation value 0,563.