Oral health knowledge, attitudes and practices of parents/guardians of pre-school children in Moshi, Tanzania

Objective: To assess the oral health knowledge, attitudes and practices of the parents/guardians of pre-school children in Moshi, Tanzania.Design: Cross-sectional study.Setting: Moshi Municipality, Kilimanjaro region, Tanzania.Subjects: Parents/guardians of 372 randomly selected 3-5-year-olds.Results: There were 174(46.8%) respondents (156 parents and 18 guardians) aged between 20 and 78 years (mean age 35±2.0). About 76% of the respondents were in the older age group (over 30 years), 79.9% were married, 63.2% had primary education and 79.9% were either professionals, farmers, skilled technical workers or in business. There weresugar moments reported by the parents/guardians for children with temperaments. Although oral health knowledge was generally poor, more parents/guardians with secondary education showed relatively better dental knowledge than those with primary education (p