Assessing the Role of Gender on Parents' Decision on Orthodontic Treatment for their Children

Abstract

Background:To determine the influence of gender on parents' decision to bring their children for orthodontic treatment.

Methods: This was a questionnaire-based descriptive cross-sectional study of 85 parents aged 20 to 62 years, who brought their children for orthodontic treatment at a tertiary hospital in Enugu, Nigeria. Data on sociodemographic profile and its association with gender preference for orthodontics treatment was collected.

Results: Eighty-five participants aged 20 to 62 years were involved in the study with mean age of 43.18 ± 9.23 years. Forty three (50.6%) of the participants were between 40-49 years. Fifty-one (60%) were females, 35(41.2%) were civil servants and 73(85.9%) believed that orthodontic treatment was necessary in both genders. Married parents were significantly (pvalue 0.043) more likely to prefer orthodontic treatment for female children than the males. Seventy-five (88.2%) will attend to their female child first if finances at a particular time would be sufficient to attend to only one child. More female children 51(60%) were brought to the clinic than the males 34(40.0%).

Conclusion: Most participants preferred that their female children got orthodontic treatment than the males if their finance was sufficient to attend to only one child. but this was not significant. Greater awareness of the need for equal attention to be paid to the correction of malocclusion in both male and female children should be encouraged