The Evaluation of the Effects of Verbal and Video-Based Instructions on the Improvement of Oral Hygiene Status in Children: A Randomized Clinical Trial

In pediatric dentistry, preventive dental approaches are essential in providing sustainable oral health of children. Despite all the preventive applications, dental caries is still an important public health problem affecting preschool and school children. Oral hygiene education has an important role on the dental health services. This aims to increase awareness of oral health, provide information about it and encourage individuals to maintain oral health. Based on, the current study aims to evaluate the effects of verbal and video-based oral hygiene instructions on the oral health parameters in patients of different age groups. 202 patients in 6-9 and 10-12 aged (n=101 and n=101, respectively) were included in the study protocol. Before oral hygiene instructions, baseline oral g of all patients were determined using Simplified Oral Hygiene Index (OHI-S). Within each age group, approximately half of the participants randomly assigned to verbal (n=50 for 6-9 ages, n=51 for 10-12 ages) and video-based OHI (n=51 for 6-9 ages, n=50 for 10-12 ages). Patients were re-called for after 30 days and final OHI-S scores were recorded. Data were analysed with Shapiro-Wilk, Mann-Whitney U and Wilcoxon Signed Rank tests. Statistical significance level was considered as 5%.