Department of Social Dentistry and Behavioural Sciences, Academic Centre for Dentistry Amsterdam (ACTA), Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Community Dent Oral Epidemiol. 2010 Dec;38(6):507-20. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0528.2010.00558.x.
Parental attitudes are likely to play a role in achieving and maintaining a desired level of oral health in children. To be useful in individually delivered caries prevention programmes, parental attitudes should be identified at individual level. Q-methodology has been proved successful in identifying attitudes in a wide range of disciplines but in dentistry Q-studies are scarce. In this study Q-methodology was used to identify parents' prevailing attitudes towards the oral health of their children.
Thirty-nine parents ranked 37 statements regarding the dental health behaviour they apply to their 6-year-old child. They later explained their rankings during a short interview. In Q-methodology, rather than reporting one average composite attitude and opinion, various combinations of opinions and attitudes concerning these statements are identified using by-person factor analysis.
Based on their beliefs, attitudes and cognitions, five categories of parents were found: (i) conscious and responsible, (ii) trivializing and fatalistic, (iii) appearance-driven and open-minded, (iv) knowledgeable but defensive and (v) conscious and concerned.
Q-methodology appears to be a fruitful way to structure the complexity of parents' opinions and attitudes towards their children's dental health. It appears that Q-methodology provides comprehensive clusters of individual attitudes, based on various levels of responses to a wide range of questions. The five identified profiles may be useful in developing tailor-made prevention strategies in caries prevention.
父母的态度可能在儿童达到和维持理想的口腔健康水平方面发挥作用。为了在个体化的龋病预防计划中发挥作用，应该在个体层面上确定父母的态度。Q 分类法已被证明在广泛的学科领域中识别态度是成功的，但在牙科领域，Q 研究却很少。本研究采用 Q 分类法来确定父母对其 6 岁儿童口腔健康的普遍态度。
39 位家长对他们应用于 6 岁孩子的口腔健康行为的 37 项陈述进行了排名。之后，他们在简短的访谈中解释了他们的排名。在 Q 分类法中，不是报告一个平均的综合态度和意见，而是通过个体因素分析来确定对这些陈述的各种意见和态度的组合。
基于他们的信念、态度和认知，发现了五类父母：（i）有意识和负责的，（ii）轻视和宿命论的，（iii）注重外表和开放思维的，（iv）有知识但有防御性的，以及（v）有意识和关心的。
Q 分类法似乎是一种有效的方法，可以构建父母对子女口腔健康的意见和态度的复杂性。Q 分类法似乎基于对广泛问题的各种反应水平，提供了个体态度的综合聚类。确定的五个特征可能有助于制定针对龋病预防的个性化预防策略。
