Early Childhood Caries Is Causally Attributed to Developing Psychomotor Deficiency in Pre-School Children: The Resultant Covariate and Confounder Analyses in a Longitudinal Cohort Study

Chen-Yi Liang, Andy Yen-Tung Teng and Yen Chun Liu
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Chen-Yi Liang: Department of Childhood Education and Nursery, Chia Nan University of Pharmacy & Science, No. 60, Sec. 1, Erren Rd., Rende Dist., Tainan City 71710, Taiwan
Andy Yen-Tung Teng: Center for Osteoimmunology and Biotechnology Research (COBR), School of Dentistry, College of Dental Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University (KMU) & KMU-Hospital, Kaohsiung City 807, Taiwan
Yen Chun Liu: Center for Osteoimmunology and Biotechnology Research, Department of Oral Hygiene, College of Dental Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, No. 100, Shih-Chuan First Road, Kaohsiung City 807, Taiwan

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 11, 1-15

Abstract: Background: Causality has recently been suggested to associate early childhood caries with psychomotor deficiency in preschoolers, where their causal interactions via other risk determinants remain unclear. Methods: To analyze such causality, we randomly recruited 123 three-to-six-year-old children in a three-year longitudinal study, where the caries/dmft measures, age/gender, BMI, amended comprehensive scales for psychomotor development (CCDI-aspects), parental education/vocation, and diet were collected for assessment of their inter-relationships. Subsequently, t -tests, multiple/linear-regressions, and R 2 -analyses were utilized to compare the differences of variables between age/gender, BMI, and dmft vs. relationships among all variables and CCDI-aspects. Results: In the regression modeling, there were significant differences between gender vs. age ( p < 0.05; not BMI) regarding established associations between caries and CCDI manifests for psychomotor deficiency. As for diet vs. socio-economic status, there were significant differences when caries/dmft were at lower- vs. higher-scales (<4 and 6–10), associated with expressive language and comprehension-concept ( p ~0.0214–0.0417) vs. gross-motor and self-help ( p ~0.0134–0.0486), respectively. Moreover, diet vs. socio-economic-status contributed significantly different CCDI-spectra via expressive language and comprehension-concept (adjusted-R 2 ~0.0220–0.2463) vs. gross-motor and self-help (adjusted-R 2 ~0.0645–0.0994), respectively, when the caries detected were at lower- vs. higher-scales (<4 and 6–10), in contrast to those depicted without both SES diet variables (adjusted-R 2 ~0.0641–0.0849). Conclusion: These new findings confirm that early childhood caries is causally attributed to developing psychomotor deficiency in preschoolers, whereas biological gender/age, not BMI, may act as viable confounders during interactions, in contrast to diet and socio-economic status, via differential low–high scales of caries activity with significant interference, respectively. Collectively, ECC-psychomotor interactions may underpin some distinct biologic vs. socio-mental/psyche attributes towards different determinants for vulnerable children.

Keywords: early childhood caries vs. dmft; psychomotor deficiency vs. CCDI aspects; pre-school kindergartners; causal interactions; longitudinal cohort study; confounders and co-variables (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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