Oral health handling behavior counseling to improve dental health knowledge of parents in choosing a proper toothache medicine for children: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Aim: The aim of this study was to increase the knowledge of elementary school students’s parents about the proper way of choosing medicine for toothache. Materials and Methods: This descriptive study with quasi-experimental method was conducted on 12 respondents who were parents of Grade 2 students of elementary school in Surabaya, and the inclusion criteria of the study were those who experienced toothache in the last 6 months and those who were using painkillers. Respondents were given a pretest to measure the level of knowledge and systematic selection of drugs for their children, and an interview was conducted for the respondents. Moreover, counseling was carried out with the material that had been prepared, and a posttest was carried out to measure the level of knowledge. The data obtained were then analyzed using the paired t-test and linear regression test (degrees of freedom = 11, confidence interval = 95%, and P < 0.05) by using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences software, version 22.0. Results: There was a significant correlation between the pretest and posttest score (P = 0.00), and this significant correlation affected by respondent’s level of knowledge (P = 0.017). Conclusion: This counseling program was able to increase the knowledge of parents about the risk of using painkillers in children’s toothache.