Parents' Compliance with Silver Diamine Fluoride Use for Treatment of Caries Lesions in Children.

The aim of our research was to study parents' perception of SDF use for caries treatment in children. The cross-sectional survey was organized among 154 parents of children aged 1-6 years. The parents' knowledge and experience in receiving SDF treatment for children, their opinion on the advantages and disadvantages of SDF use for caries treatment, their satisfaction with SDF treatment were analyzed. SciStat.com software was used for statistics, proportions (%) and 95% Confidence Interval (CI) were calculated; the differences were assessed by Chi-square test at p-value < 0.05. The analysis of the obtained data revealed that most parents were poorly informed (57.1%) or uninformed (9.7%) about SDF use for caries treatment in children. Only 40.3% parents mentioned dentists as the source of information. Parental acceptance of SDF application for primary teeth was 27.9%. The parents declared that dentists rarely explain positive and negative aspects of the SDF. Many parents did not know the advantages and disadvantages of SDF. Meanwhile, 42.2% of the parents considered black color of caries lesions caused by SDF application as its main drawback. Only 17.5% of the parents reported that their own children received caries treatment with SDF application. Among them 18.5% were satisfied with this treatment completely, 48.1% partly, and 33.3% were unsatisfied. Insufficient awareness of the parents about caries treatment with SDF use is an important barrier for its implementation. The darkening of caries lesions was the main drawback of SDF use and the leading cause of the parental incompliance with SDF treatment for their children. Clinical article [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]