Influence of oral health attitude of mothers on the gingival health of their school age children.

We investigated the influence of mothers' oral health attitudes on their children's gingival health level, in 257 pairs of mothers and children from an elementary school in Hiroshima. The Oral Rating Index for Children (ORI-C) was used for the gingival health examination, and the Hiroshima University Dental Behavioral Inventory (HU-DBI) was used to assess the oral health attitude of each mother. Subjects in mother and child pairs were divided into a lower grade group (L-group) (grades 1-3), and upper grade group (U-group) (grades 4-6). Gingival health i L-group children was 3.42 times higher in those whose mothers noticed plaque, and 2.68 times higher in those who received dental check-ups. However, ORI-C scores were not correlated to HU-DBI scores in the U-group. We concluded that the gingival health of children could be significantly influenced by the oral health attitude of their mothers up to approximately ten years of age.