Positive Correlation Between Maternal Self-Efficacy with The Children Oral Hygiene Behavior

Introduction: Maternal self-efficacy refers to a parent's self-efficacy in his ability to effectively manage various tasks and situations. Mothers have a very important role in influencing the habits and health status of their children because children depend on their mothers to meet their oral health needs. Methods: This type of research was a quasi-experimental study with 124 participants divided into 62 people in the intervention group and 62 in the control group, with inclusion criteria for mothers who have children aged 4-6 years. Maternal self-efficacy was assessed using a modified Self Efficacy Scale for Maternal Oral care (SESMO) questionnaire. Children's dental hygiene was calculated by the Patient Hygiene Performance plaque index. Data analysis used Spearman correlation test (p<0.05). Results: This study showed that high maternal self-efficacy is mostly high school and college education. Mothers in the majority intervention group have good and moderate child dental hygiene compared to the control group. It was found that a significant correlation between mother's self-efficacy and child's dental hygiene (r=0.352, p=0.000). Mothers with low self-efficacy had a children with 3.10 times the odds of risk their dental hygiene was poor (OR = 3.10; CI =95%; 1.07-8.98). Conclusion: The children oral hygiene behavior was positively correlated with maternal self-efficacy. The finding of this study suggest that mothers with low self-efficacy are at risk of having children with poor dental hygiene.