Preschool Children Feeding Patterns And Early Childhood Oral Health Impact In Tanah Merah, Kelantan, Malaysia

Abstract

Introduction: Poor feeding patterns increase risk of Early Childhood Caries (ECC), which can cause negative impacts on oral health-related quality of life (OHQoL) of preschool children and parents. This study aims to assess feeding patterns of preschool children and OHQoL of the children and their parents in Tanah Merah. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted involving 134 preschool children aged 5-6 years old from eight private preschools, chosen by multi-staged stratified cluster sampling. Parents answered adopted self-administered questionnaire on feeding patterns and oral health-related impacts. Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal-Wallis test were used to compare the median between groups of feeding patterns. Results: A total of 122 parents responded. Majority of the children had history of bottle-feeding (97.5%) and being given solid food during infancy (61.2%). Many children were still using bottle to drink (38.5%). Majority were still given formula milk at least three times daily (51.1%) and were feed with bottle to put to sleep (97.9%). The Child Impact Section (CIS), Family Impact Section (FIS) and Overall ECOHIS mean scores were 2.39 (SD=3.41), 0.71 (SD=1.45) and 3.10 (SD=4.41), respectively. Most common impact reported in CIS was ‘oral pain’ (26.2%) whereas in FIS, ‘parents felt guilty’ (7.4%). None of feeding patterns were found significantly different in terms of ECOHIS score median (p-value>0.05). Children OHQoL reporting by proxy should be treated as complementary. Conclusion: Many preschool children were involved in prolonged, frequent and nocturnal bottle-feeding. No significant difference in median ECOHIS scores found according to feeding patterns.