1Assistant Professor, Department of Public Health Dentistry, Srinivas Institute of Dental Sciences, Mukka, Suratkal, India
2Associate Professor, Faculty of Dentistry, Melaka Manipal Medical College, Manipal University – 576104
3Assistant Professor, Department of Periodontics, Indira Gandhi Institute of Dental Science, Pondicherry-607402, India
4Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatric Dentistry, AME's Dental College, Raichur, Karnataka
5Assistant Professor, Department of Oral Medicine and Radiology, Ambedkar Dental College, Patna, Bihar
*Corresponding author: Dr Arunima Chauhan, Associate Professor, Faculty of Dentistry, Melaka Manipal Medical College, Manipal University - 576104, Karnataka, India, +91 - 9742022860, drarunima@rediffmail.com
Online published on 26 April, 2016.
To evaluate the effectiveness of a school based intervention program on gingival health of 10–12 year old government aided school children of Basavangudi in Bangalore city.
A 6 month randomized controlled trial was conducted on 264 subjects, aged 10–12 years to evaluate the effectiveness of school based intervention (oral health education) given in three different forms against a control group which received no intervention. These schools were randomly assigned as group A (control), Group B (class work), Group C (parental) and Group D (both classwork and parental). Intervention was given once every two months and their oral hygiene practices recorded by a questionnaire. The changes were recorded using Silness and Loe Plaque index and Loe and Silness Gingival index at pre and post intervention (2 months after the last intervention). Student's t test and one way ANOVA was used to compare the mean differences between pre and post intervention scores, followed by Post hoc test for within group differences.
Reduction observed in plaque and gingival scores following interventions were statistically significant (p<0.001). Within groups comparison revealed significant differences for group C (p=0.002) and group B (p=0.021) for gingival scores, this was not observed in Plaque scores. A Hawthorne effect was also observed in control group. An improvement was also observed in oral hygiene practices.
Parental involvement was found to improve gingival health. Oral health education given once every 2 months was found to reduce plaque and gingival scores.
Gingival health, adolescent's oral health, dental health education, oral health promotion
