Table 3.
Univariate Association between dmfs and Independent Variables.
| Primary Predictor | Estimate | 2.5% | 97.5% | P Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Age | 1.637 | 1.202 | 2.226 | 0.0020 |
| Child sex (female) | 1.109 | 0.554 | 2.245 | 0.7691 |
| Language (Spanish) | 2.011 | 1.019 | 4.085 | 0.0441 |
| Oral health behavior | 0.776 | 0.638 | 0.946 | 0.0126 |
| Oral health knowledge | 0.949 | 0.784 | 1.127 | 0.5615 |
| OHLOC (3 subscales) | ||||
| Internal OHLOC | 1.391 | 0.805 | 2.263 | 0.2260 |
| External-powerful others OHLOC | 1.114 | 0.757 | 1.660 | 0.5864 |
| External chance OHLOC | 1.004 | 0.732 | 1.414 | 0.9817 |
| Self-efficacy | 0.962 | 0.492 | 1.775 | 0.9052 |
| Knowledge on dental utilization | 1.547 | 0.830 | 2.744 | 0.1643 |
| HBM perceived severity | 0.746 | 0.511 | 1.055 | 0.0996 |
| HBM perceived barriers | 1.274 | 0.808 | 2.072 | 0.3034 |
| HBM perceived susceptibility | 1.183 | 0.763 | 1.823 | 0.4515 |
| Education | 0.814 | 0.395 | 1.620 | 0.5602 |
| Employed | 1.280 | 0.633 | 2.717 | 0.4977 |
| Household income | 0.893 | 0.649 | 1.259 | 0.5084 |
For interpretability, oral health behavior and knowledge were modeled as the count of correct responses. 2.5 and 97.5 are the confidence intervals.
dmfs, decayed, missing, filled tooth surfaces; HBM, health belief model; OHLOC, oral health locus of control.