• KANCHAN DESHMUKH

ABSTRACT Background:- Children under the age of 5 years generally spend most of their time with parents and guardians, especially mothers, even when they attend pre-schools or nurseries. Mothers, who are the primary role model for them, their health beliefs and attitude towards oral health care, act as a significant predictor of children’s oral health. Dental health education given to mothers and aimed at children is more concerned with forming habits, rather than trying to manage established routines. Hence knowledge of mothers has an important role in the maintenance of Oral hygiene status of the children. Objective:-To evaluate the impact of Oral hygiene counselling intervention on knowledge, attitude and practices of the mothers towards preschool children Materials & Methods:- Mothers and their preschool children aged 3-5 years belongs to pravaranagar region of Ahmednagar District, Maharashtra State, India were selected for the study. 300 mothers were selected as samples for the counselling intervention programme study. Out of these 300 mothers 153 mothers treated as the experimental group for intervention and the other 147 as the control group. The experimental group received Oral hygiene education through counselling by the researcher, while the control group did not. KAP method was used to measure the impact of counselling. Result and Discussion:- Oral Hygiene knowledge, attitude and practices of the mothers towards the preschool children in the experimental group and control group was assessed before and after the intervention programme. It is overall concluded as from the results that knowledge, attitude and practice score level of the mothers in the experimental group was appreciable improved and statistically significant at 5 percent level (p-value < 0.05). Conclusion:-The results of the study revealed that the counselling intervention on Oral hygiene has significantly improved the knowledge, attitude, and practices of the mothers towards preschool children.

Key Words: Knowledge, Attitude, Practices, Oral hygiene, Mother, Preschool children

"IMPACT OF ORAL HYGIENE COUNSELLING ON KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICES OF THE MOTHERS TOWARDS PRESCHOOL CHILDREN", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 5, page no.215-218, May-2019, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1905034.pdf

"IMPACT OF ORAL HYGIENE COUNSELLING ON KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICES OF THE MOTHERS TOWARDS PRESCHOOL CHILDREN", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 5, page no. pp215-218, May-2019, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1905034.pdf