The instrument used for collecting data was a
structured questionnaire which contains six parts: Part
1 consists of six questions about socio-demographic
characteristics, including age, education, occupation,
ethnicity, monthly family income and number
of children. Part 2 had 11 questions asking about
knowledge of mothers regarding dental caries and its
prevention. Based on the number of correct answers,
each respondent was scored to judge their level of
knowledge about dental caries, based on Bloom’s
criteria. In the third part, there were 13 statements
which covered perceived susceptibility, seriousness,
benefit and barrier, to be responded to by the
respondents. A Likert scale was used to determine
the perception of mothers toward dental caries in
their children. The perception of the mothers was
then categorized into three levels based on the mean
and standard deviation. In part 4, sources of information
about dental caries in preschool children and its
prevention were ascertained by two questions, which
cover mass media andindividuals. In part 5, there
were four “Yes-No” questions asking about social
support from the mothers’ surrounding communities
and if these communities supported their dental caries