. Vineetha Karuveettil; . S. Vijay Kumar; . Chandrashekar Janakiram; . Joe Joseph
Volume 10, Issue 4 , April 2020, , Pages 1-6
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The high incidence of dental diseases among Indian children can be attributed to lowawareness regarding the oral health maintenance. The school health curriculum in India ...
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BACKGROUND: The high incidence of dental diseases among Indian children can be attributed to lowawareness regarding the oral health maintenance. The school health curriculum in India is deficientof an oral health component, and there are no organized oral health programs for schoolchildrenexisting at present. Therefore, the present study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of an oralhealth curriculum in improving the oral health behavior and dental caries experience in schoolchildren.METHODS: A nonrandomized trial with pretest/posttest design was conducted among 600schoolchildren. Two intervention arms were designed with one group receiving health education from adental health professional and other from a school teacher. The oral health curriculum was customizedfor three sections of different age groups (lower primary [LP], upper primary [UP], high school [HS])and implemented for a period of 1 year. Oral health behaviors were recorded using a Knowledge,Attitude and Practice (KAP) questionnaire and were evaluated at baseline, 6 months, and 1 year ofthe educational intervention. Dental caries experience was measured Pre and Post - interventionusing deft and decayed, missing, and filled teeth indices. Descriptive statistics were calculated forcontinuous data, and the change in KAP scores and dental caries experience was analyzed usingthe repeated measures of ANOVA, independent t‑tests, and paired t‑tests.RESULTS: There were significant improvements in KAP regarding oral health among Indianschoolchildren. Significant reductions in decayed primary teeth were observed in LP and UPschoolchildren post-intervention. However, there was no significant difference in primary outcomebetween the two intervention arms.CONCLUSIONS: A curriculum‑based health education intervention customized for different agegroups was found to be effective in improving oral health behavior and dental caries experienceamong Indian schoolchildren.
