Abstract:
Dental health problem are one of the major health problems of preschool children. They cause
economic loss and destruction of children's health. A sustainable solution is dental health behavior promotion
for guardians or parents. This would include synthesis of the relevant information on children's health care.
This research is quasi experimental research and it was applied with the Health Belief Model.
(Rosenstock, 1974: 330)The purpose of this research was to study the effects of a dental promotion program
on parent's behavior regarding the dental health of their preschool children. The preschool children were
from the early children care center in Bangsue District, Bangkok. The experimental group consisted
50 parents of the preschool children at the Hua Rod Jak Tuek Dang Community Early Childhood Care
Center. The control group consisted of 50 parents of preschool children at the Baan Rod Fai Community
Early Childhood Care Center. This study was conducted for 8 weeks; it included data collection through
self-administered questionnaires. The statistical analysis was done by using percentage, mean, standard
deviation, median, Pair Samples t test and Student's t test.
The results of this study revealed that, after the experiment, the experimental group's perception of
the risk of preschool children's dental caries, the perception of the damage done by preschool children
dental's caries, the perception on advantage and obstacle concerning the prevention practice of preschool
children, the perception of self-efficacy and action to prevent the dental caries of preschool children and
the dental care behavior of parent increase significantly (p < 0.001)
These results suggested that the dental health promotion program should be applied enabled the parent
of preschool children to practice dental health promotion so that the children improved their dental health behavior.