The Relationship between Parental Socioeconomic Status and Knowledge, Attitudes and Tendency toward Fluoride Therapy for Their 7-9 Year Old School Children

Background: the present study was conducted to investigate the relationship between socioeconomic status of parents and their knowledge, attitude and tendency toward different forms of fluoride therapy for their 7-9 year-old primary school children in shiraz. methods: a total of 444 subjects were selected through multistage random sampling. the subjects were parents of 7-9 year old boys and girls attending primary schools in 4 districts in shiraz. they were asked to fill out a questionnaire containing a number of questions regarding their knowledge, attitudes and tendency toward fluoride therapy for their children. results: the mean scores for parental knowledge, tendency and attitude toward fluoride therapy for their children were 8.05±2.46, 3.38±1.73 and 54.66±5.89, respectively. as to the parental knowledge, 25.23% and 72.52% of the subjects had either poor or average knowledge, respectively. similarly, about 32% and 39.6% of the parents had a poor or average tendency toward fluoride therapy and 42.57% and 57.43% of them held a strong or mild positive attitude toward it, respectively. conclusion: the findings of the present study indicated that the majority of parents did not have sufficient knowledge about different types of fluoride therapy and their caries-preventive effect. they lacked a positive attitude and a strong tendency to practice fluoride therapy for their children. there was a significant association between socioeconomic status of parents and their knowledge, attitude and tendency toward fluoride therapy for their children.