Early childhood caries: Analysis of psychosocial and biological factors ina high-risk population

The influences that link social factors and caries development are not well understood, although mediation by stress has been suggested. The associati on between caregiver stress and early childhood caries (ECC), in particular , remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationshi ps between parenting stress and ECC while controlling for behavioral and bi ological factors in a high-risk population. One hundred and fifty healthy c hildren aged 18-36 months were examined in a cross-sectional study design. Parental interviews were conducted to obtain demographic, oral health behav ior and parenting stress data. Clinical data included parent and child bact erial measures' fingernail fluoride analyses, caries prevalence and presenc e of child enamel hypoplasia. Bivariate analyses revealed that parenting st ress predicted caries. Multivariate analyses demonstrated that a combinatio n of psychosocial, behavioral, temporal and biological variables predicted ECC outcomes. Total parenting stress did not contribute independently to th e best prediction model. Our findings suggest the need for the development of a multidimensional stress model that considers the parent-child dyad to elucidate further the link between psychosocial factors and ECC. Copyright (C) 2000 S. Karger AG, Basel.