Aims: Children with epilepsy are exposed to oral disease due to the lack of self-care and antiepileptic medicines' side effects. The present study aimed to assess the association between mothers' oral health literacy with a child who has epilepsy and the children's oral health status.
Materials & Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed during the fall and winter of 2017 in Ahvaz, Iran. Mothers of one-hundred 3-6 years' children with epilepsy referred to Golestan hospital were selected through the available sampling method and completed a valid and reliable questionnaire on oral health literacy. The children's oral and dental health was also examined by a dentist to determine decayed, missed, and filled teeth and simplified oral hygiene index. ANOVA and Pearson correlations were used to analyze data in SPSS 15.
Findings: The mean age of mothers, OHI-S index, and the average number of decayed teeth in children were 30.28±4.3, 2.75±0.75, and 2.86±1.65, respectively. Besides, the mean numbers of extracted and filled teeth of children were respectively 0.31±0.48 and 0.19±0.41. A significant relationship was seen between the mother's education and the simplified oral hygiene index. Also, there was a significant relationship between mothers' oral health literacy and decayed, missed, and filled teeth (p<0.005). Moreover, no statistically significant relationship was observed between mothers' oral health literacy and simplified oral hygiene index score (p>0.05).
Conclusion: The present study showed an association between maternal Oral Health Literacy and children's oral health with epilepsy.