Effectiveness Of Mobile Application Based And Personalised Oral Health Education On Oral Hygiene Of 12 Year Old Children In Chennai City - An Interventional Study

Oral health describes the well-being of the oral cavity, including the dentition and its supporting structures and tissues. The most commonly prevalent oral disease in children is the dental caries and gingivitis. Globally it is estimated that more than 530 million children suffer from caries of primary teeth. A continued high intake of free sugars, inadequate exposure to fluoride and a lack of removal of plaque by toothbrushing can result in poor oral health. Oral hygiene maintenance is crucial for prevention of various oral diseases. The different strategies of oral health education constitute an essential tool in promotion and prevention, because they encourage and motivate individuals to take responsibility for their own health. Behavioral interventions or education to the individual about how to maintain the pleasant condition of a person’s mouth are required to reduce the oral health problems and to promote oral health . Learning about oral health traditionally has been depended on traditional techniques. The traditional methods used at present are demonstration of correct brushing technique through models , pamplets , videos and by verbal based oral health education. Oral health education through traditional lecturing has been found successful in improving oral health knowledge. As an innovative idea to attract children we can convey oral health education to the children in the form of stories ( personalised ) to make them learn the proper brushing technique as well as for habit formation . As technology advances at an ever-rapid speed, there are revolutionary ways to learn proper tooth brushing and habit formation. A number of technologies, techniques and methodologies are available in this context. Mobile application based oral health education is the current trend which can be scientifically referred as augmented reality. These applications use real-time  information in the form of text, graphics, audio, and other virtual enhancements integrated with real-world objects. Their main advantages include  interactive nature and its ability to differentiate between digital and real world of 3D modelling of anatomical structures and it enhances visual sense. In dentistry its used for education in oral and maxillofacial , implant and orthognathic surgeries . Nowadays everything is based upon smart phone applications . Current research suggests mobile technologies, such as smartphone applications are a cost-effective approach to provide health information to large populations.  The propagation of applications that leverage smartphone technology has increased along with the ubiquity of smartphone adoption. Learning and cultivation of appropriate healthy habits are usually encouraged in younger age group. The use of interactive teaching methods will help them to enhance the learning and performance. The importance of 12 year old age group are that it is the index group for assessment of school children as indicated by the World Health Organization. There is hardly any evidence on comparison of two interactive methods of oral health education for children. With this background, this study is formulated to assess the effectiveness of mobile application based and personalised oral health education on oral hygiene of 12 year old children .