Table 3.

Univariate negative binomial regression analysis of the potential risk factors for decayed teeth (dt) of the pre-schoolers

Variables	B	SE	Mean ratio (95% CI)	p value
Sex
Femalea
Male	0.486	0.114	1.63 (1.300–2.035)	< 0.001
Age	0.062	0.899	1.06 (0.892–1.269)	0.490
Birth order	0.087	0.427	1.09 (1.003–1.187)	0.041
Father’s age	−0.004	0.009	1.00 (0.979–1.014)	0.677
Mother’s age	−0.003	0.106	1.00 (0.976–1.018)	0.779
Father’s educational level
Secondary education and belowa
Tertiary education	0.197	0.129	1.22 (0.945–1.567)	0.128
Mother’s educational level
Secondary education and belowa
Tertiary education	0.175	0.130	1.19 (0.924–1.536)	0.176
Marital Status
Single/Divorced/Separated/Widoweda
Married	0.153	0.242	1.17 (0.725–1.873)	0.527
Monthly household income
Below MYR4000a
MYR4000 and above	0.076	0.172	1.08 (0.771–1.510)	0.659
Weight-for-age z-score
Normala
Underweight	0.379	0.173	1.46 (1.041–2.052)	0.029
Height-for-age z-score
Normala
Stunted	0.618	0.213	1.86 (1.224–2.814)	0.004*
BMI-for-age z-score
Underweighta
Normal	0.346	0.228	1.41 (0.905–2.209)	0.128
Overweight	−0.850	0.303	0.92 (0.507–1.663)	0.778
Obese	0.332	0.311	1.39 (0.758–2.564)	0.285
Number of cigarettes smoked inside the house in a day
Never smoked inside the housea
≥ 1 cigarette smoked inside the house per day	0.358	0.146	1.43 (1.076–1.903)	0.014*
Total sugar exposure
≤ 6a
> 6	0.666	0.196	1.95 (1.326–2.857)	0.001*

^aReference group, B log (dt index), SE Standard Error; *p < 0.05