Evaluation Of Effectiveness Of Oral Hygiene Curriculum In Brushing Behaviour Change Among School Children In Kanchipuram District- A Clinical Trial.

Oral diseases are the major public health problem due to their high prevalence and noteworthy social impact and it can be controlled only if it was diagnosed at an earlier stage. This study is aimed to evaluate oral health status, oral hygiene practices, among 8-10-year-old school going children in Kanchipuram district. A clinical trial was conducted in 90 schools in Kanchipuram district. Students were selected from 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th standard consists of 4 students from each class with a total of 12 students from each school. Dental caries (DMFT and dmft index), brushing frequency, use of fluoridated toothpaste and sugar intake were assessed. Mean decayed permanent teeth and mean decayed milk teeth were found to be 0.29± 0.692 and 2.65± 2.711 respectively. 95.93% of the participants use fluoridated toothpaste and 69.44% brushes once in a day and 30.37% of participants brushes twice a day. Children of 8 years, 9 years and 10 years have 19.2%, 21.8% and 10.6% prevalence of dental caries respectively. Significant association was found between decayed permanent teeth use of fluoridated toothpaste(p=0.001) as children using fluoridated toothpaste had lower prevalence of caries in our clinical trial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]