The Influence of Information Technology-Based Toddler Dental Health Care Model (AGITA) on Mothers towards Teeth Brushing Skills of Children

Abstract

Toddlers are vulnerable group to dental and oral health since they still need help from other in doing daily activities.
Strategies to prevent dental caries in children can be done through behavior changes by involving the role of
parents, especially mothers. A new method relate with the mitigation of pandemic Covid 19 need to be developed
which this method can reach the goal to increase tooth brushing skill of toddlers. This study used Research and
Development (R&D) and model trials using one group pre-experimental pretest and posttest design. There are 5
stages of research namely 1) information collection, 2) model design, 3) expert validation and revision, 4)
product/model trials, 5) product results. The mother and child study subjects was 82 samples, given interventions
by applying AGITA for 10 days. The data was tested using intra class correlation and Wilcoxon tests. AGITA
model validation test obtained an average value of 95.1 is categorized very decent (p=0.016) and increased child's
teeth brushing skills (p=0.001) after the mother applied AGITA in guiding the child in brushing teeth. When
mother’s knowledge about tooth brushing is increase it will influence their children’s skill. The application of
information technology-based AGITA model in mothers is effective to increase the child's teeth brushing skills.
Recommendation for this software named AGITA can be socialized and applied to more mother and their children
in Indonesia.