Factors associated with parents' and adolescents' perceptions of oral health and need for dental treatment.

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to characterize the association between clinical and psychosocial factors as they related to perceptions by parents and adolescents to the adolescent's oral health status and treatment need. Additionally, the degree to which adolescent's and parent's perceptions of oral health and treatment need were related was examined. METHODS Data from the Pennsylvania oral health needs assessment for 530 parent-adolescent pairs were used to address the objectives of this study. Comparisons between clinical oral health measures, psychosocial factors, and the parent- and adolescent-reported perceptions of the adolescent's oral health status were made using descriptive and inferential statistics, including exploratory factor analysis and path analysis. RESULTS Parents and adolescents exhibited only modest concordance on ratings of the adolescent's oral health status and need for dental treatment. Furthermore, parents tended to rate their adolescent's oral health status as better than did the adolescent. The results of the path analysis showed that adolescents based their ratings of oral health status more on oral symptoms, while parents rated their adolescent's oral health more on esthetic or psychosocial factors. CONCLUSIONS Adolescents and parents based their perceptions of oral health status and treatment need on different underlying factors. Additionally, adolescents' perceptions of their oral health status and treatment needs did not appear to be communicated to their parents.