Self perception of country health and correlation with the child's oral health care

Oral health care in the first years of life is dependent on what is taught by parents or caregivers. The study aimed to identify the self-perception of oral health of adults and associated variables. It is a cross-sectional and descriptive study with a qualitative-quantitative approach performed with parents of students from a public school in Quixadá-Ceará. A structured questionnaire was applied and then an oral health education activity was carried out. For the evaluation of the association between the predictor variables and outcomes, the chi-square test and Odds ratio were applied considering the level of significance of 5%. 54 parents of students enrolled in primary, 7th and 8th grade participated in the study. 94.4% (n = 51) of the parents consider their oral health very good / good. The results show that 87% (n = 47) of the parents already took their children to the dentist, which when associated with the parents' self-perception obtained a value of p <0.005. In contrast, 74.1% (n = 40) reported from 0 to 10 years studied and when associated with the parents' self-perception of oral health was statistically significant p <0.003. It is concluded that the self-perception of oral health of the parents is considered very good / good despite the low level of schooling.