Evaluation of the relationship between parents' conscious awareness and authority and their children's oral hygiene status

Aim: This study aims to explore the relationship between parents' mindful awareness and parenting styles, and their children's oral hygiene. It focuses on the important role parents play in managing their children's oral health and how different parenting styles and mindfulness levels may affect children's oral hygiene. Materials and Methods: This study was conducted in the Department of Pediatric Dentistry at İnönü University Faculty of Dentistry and included child patients aged 4–8 years along with their parents. A demographic questionnaire was administered to collect sociodemographic and medical information for both children and parents. Parenting styles were assessed using the Parental Authority Questionnaire (PAQ), and levels of mindful parenting were measured with the Mindfulness in Parenting Questionnaire (MIPQ). Children's oral health status was evaluated using the International Caries Detection and Assessment System II (ICDAS II) Results: Of the 150 children included in the study, 55.3% were girls and 44.7% were boys, with a mean age of 6.33 ± 1.11 years. Analysis of parenting styles showed that most mothers endorsed an authoritative approach, whereas authoritarian and permissive styles were less prevalent. An authoritarian parenting style was negatively associated with overall mindful parenting, reaching statistical significance particularly on the "being in the moment with the child" and "parenting self-efficacy" subscales. In contrast, authoritative parenting demonstrated a weak but significant positive correlation with self-efficacy (r = 0.176; p = 0.031), while permissive parenting bore no relationship to any mindful parenting dimensions. Finally, when Mindfulness in Parenting Questionnaire and Parental Authority Questionnaire–Revised subscale scores and ICDAS II caries indices were compared across tooth-brushing frequency groups, the only statistically significant difference was found for the mean ICDAS II caries score (F(2, N) = 8.880; p = 0.012). Conclusion: This study demonstrated that parenting styles and levels of mindful parenting are interrelated. An authoritarian parenting style showed significant negative correlations with specific subscales of mindful parenting, whereas authoritative parenting was positively associated with parenting self-efficacy. Moreover, the significant differences in caries scores across children's tooth-brushing frequencies underscore the importance of oral hygiene habits as a key indicator of child health. These findings offer valuable insights into the potential links between parenting approaches and oral health behaviors. Keywords: Mindful Parenting, Parenting Styles, Dental Caries