. Apurva P Deshpande; . Anil V Ankola; . Roopali Sankeshwari; . Sagar Jalihal; . Deepika V Bhat; . Abhra Roy Choudhury; . Ram Surath Kumar; . Atrey Pai Khot
Volume 13, Issue 1 , January 2023, , Pages 1-17
Abstract
Appropriate oral health education (OHE) plays a vital role in prevention of oral diseases and would bridgethe gap between dentists and visually impaired individuals. Hence, this systematic ...
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Appropriate oral health education (OHE) plays a vital role in prevention of oral diseases and would bridgethe gap between dentists and visually impaired individuals. Hence, this systematic review was plannedwith an aim to evaluate effectiveness of various OHE techniques on the oral hygiene status and oralhealth knowledge of visually impaired young individuals. An electronic search extended to September30, 2020 was conducted on PubMed, Wiley, ProQuest, ScienceDirect, Cochrane library, EBSCO, andGoogle Scholar. Two independent reviewers assessed the studies using a two‑stage process; data wereextracted according to PRISMA statement. Risk of bias assessment of selected studies was executedaccording to the study designs. Meta‑analysis using the random‑effects model was conducted for theoutcomes for all oral health education techniques using STATASE 16.1 software. Hand and electronicsearch identified 3829 articles. After screening for titles and duplicates, 37 articles were retrieved, whichwere screened through abstract and full text. Of the 37 articles, 17 articles were included for qualitativesynthesis, and out of that, 13 were for meta‑analysis. Ten variations in oral health education (OHE)techniques were used in the included 17 studies to impart oral health education to visually impairedyoung individuals. Overall, all OHE techniques demonstrated a positive impact on oral hygiene status.The pooled overall cumulative mean difference of the oral hygiene status after imparting education inATP, Audio, and Braille was 1.33 [1.06, 1.59], 1.76 [1.11, 2.42], and 1.96 [1.40, 2.55], respectively.An appropriate OHE technique boosts confidence in visually impaired young individuals, making thelearning process an enjoyable experience. Use of either Braille or the ATP OHE technique was foundto be a reliable and useful method to improve oral hygiene of visually impaired young individuals.