Maternal Factors Associated with Early Childhood Caries in Urban Latino Children

The objective of this investigation was to describe maternal psychosocial, behavioral, and acculturation factors associated with early childhood caries in a sample of urban Latino mother-child dyads. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 100 mothers whose children (under the age of 6 y) were patients at the Dental Center at Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora, Colorado. All children participating in the study received an oral examination to measure decayed, missing, filled, surfaces (dmfs). Participating mothers were given the option to sign the consent form and complete the survey in English or Spanish, according to their preferred language. The survey used demographic, behavioral, knowledge, and several psychosocial variables. Bivariate analysis was conducted with dmfs as a dependent variable. The associations between independent variables and dmfs were modeled using negative binomial regression. Mean ± SD dmfs for the entire sample was about 11 ± 16.85. The mothers who spoke Spanish had childr...