Salivary Cortisol as a Biomarker to Explore the Role of Maternal Stress in Early Childhood Caries

Table 2

Comparison of mean salivary cortisol levels in children and mothers of children with and without early childhood caries.

	Group	𝑁	Mean	Std. deviation	𝑡	Sig^a
Salivary cortisol level-Mothers	ECC	40	.40645	.259784	2.144	.036*
	Caries free	24	.27904	.210454
Salivary cortisol level-Children	ECC	40	.22403	.107102	7.925	.000**
	Caries free	24	.06742	.049905

aMeasured using the Mann-Whitney 𝑈 test.
*Differences significant at 𝑃<0.05.
**Differences significant at 𝑃<0.001.