Background: Oral health education (OHE) in schools has largely been imparted by dental professionals.\r\nConsidering the substantial cost of this expert-led approach, the strategies relying on teachers, peer-leaders and\r\nlearners themselves have also been utilized. However the evidence for comparative effectiveness of these strategies\r\nis lacking in the dental literature. The present study was conducted to compare the effectiveness of dentist-led,\r\nteacher-led, peer-led and self-learning strategies of oral health education.\r\nMethods: A two-year cluster randomized controlled trial following a parallel design was conducted. It involved five\r\ngroups of adolescents aged 10-11 years at the start of the study. The trial involved process as well as four outcome\r\nevaluations. The present paper discusses the findings of the study pertaining to the baseline and final outcome\r\nevaluation, both comprising of a self-administered questionnaire, a structured interview and clinical oral\r\nexamination. The data were analyzed using Generalized Estimating Equations.\r\nResults: All the three educator-led strategies of OHE had statistically higher mean oral health knowledge (OHK),\r\noral health behavior (OHB), oral hygiene status (OHS) and combined knowledge, behavior and oral hygiene status\r\n(KBS) scores than the self-learning and control groups (p<0.001). The mean OHK, OHS and KBS scores of the three\r\neducator-led strategies did not differ significantly. The peer-led strategy was, however, found to have a significantly\r\nbetter OHB score than the respective score of the teacher-led strategy (p<0.05). The self-learning group had\r\nsignificantly higher OHB score than the control group (p<0.05) but the OHK, OHS and KBS scores of the two groups\r\nwere not significantly different.\r\nConclusions: The dentist-led, teacher-led and peer-led strategies of oral health education are equally effective in\r\nimproving the oral health knowledge and oral hygiene status of adolescents. The peer-led strategy, however, is\r\nalmost as effective as the dentist-led strategy and comparatively more effective than the teacher-led and\r\nself-learning strategies in improving their oral health behavior.
Loading....