1Health Polytechnic Ministry of Health, Semarang, Indonesia
2College of Business Administration and Port Management, Surabaya, Indonesia
*Corresponding author: Betty Saptiwi, Health Polytechnic Ministry of Health, Semarang, Indonesia
Online published on 1 November, 2018.
Children with special needs should get a special care of the teeth and mouth health from both the teachers at school and the parents at home. Most students at the public elementary school for exceptional children in Semarang, Indonesia (77%) suffered from dental caries requiring a particular attention. Irene's Donuts Oral Health School Innovative Program is a method that has been proven in reducing the risk of caries in the elementary school, so it needs to be tested then applicability to students in elementary school for exceptional children.
The type of this research is a quasi-experimental study with a non-randomized pretest-posttest control group design. This study was conducted on76 respondents with 38 respondents in the control group and 38 respondents in the experimental group.
The pre and post-test result of dependent t-test against the Oral Hygiene Index (OHI-S) shows that the p-value is 0.000. The results of Mann-Whitney test on the behavior of dental and oral health care in the control group and the treatment group shows 0.024 of a p-value.
The conclusion from this research is that there is a difference between the OHI-S before and after the application of innovative Irene's Donuts program to the students in elementary school for exceptional children. Moreover, there is a difference between the behavior of the maintenance of the oral health before and after the application of the program.
Exceptional children, Oral Health School Program, Irene's Donuts, OHI-S
