Oral Health Knowledge, Attitudes, and Perceptions of Pregnant Kuwaiti Women: A Qualitative Study

Good oral hygiene is known to prevent maternal gingivitis, but little is known about Kuwaiti pregnant women's understanding and beliefs about maintaining and improving oral health during pregnancy. This qualitative study investigated perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes about oral health among Kuwaiti pregnant women and explored beliefs about maintaining and improving oral health during pregnancy. In-depth one-to-one interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 19 Kuwaiti pregnant women across 7 government primary health care centers in Kuwait. A topic guide framed the questions, which explored pregnancy, oral health, oral health and pregnancy, oral health knowledge, and oral health behaviors. All interviews were digitally recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed by thematic analysis. The key themes emerging from the data related to low oral health knowledge, unhelpful cultural beliefs concerning oral health during pregnancy, and lack of awareness about the effect of pregnancy on oral health. Pregnant women lacked motivation to seek dental care even when they considered dental treatment safe during pregnancy. Dentists' purported incorrect beliefs about providing dental treatment to pregnant women and the women's lack of motivation were identified as barriers to accessing oral health care and seeking oral health knowledge. Pregnant women in this study had not received the necessary oral health information to undertake appropriate oral health behaviors. Cultural beliefs and practices about oral health were identified that need to be tackled to improve and maintain positive oral health behaviors during pregnancy. Behavioral interventions must acknowledge the cultural sensitivity around beliefs during pregnancy and, as a first step, focus on correcting oral health knowledge among Kuwaiti pregnant women. Knowledge Transfer Statement: The results of this qualitative study can be used by oral health care workers and researchers to plan and design more targeted dental health education interventions with pregnant women. The information in this study might be helpful to public health decision makers to make more appropriate decisions about implementing dental health education with pregnant women.