The Effectiveness of Oral Health Program by Learning with A Group Discussion for Oral Health Behaviors of Patients with Diabetes Mellitus in The Sanitarium Thakhuntho Sub District, Thakhuntho District, Kalasin Province.

Abstract

            This quasi-experimental research was to examine the effectiveness of oral health program by learning with a group discussion for oral health behaviors in diabetes mellitus patients in the sanitarium Thakhuntho Sub District, Thakhuntho District, Kalasin Province. The samples were 62 diabetes patients who were divided to experimental and comparison groups (31 patients in each). The implementation consisted of different activities which included teaching about diabetes and oral health, group discussion, butterfly pea for staining plaque index, walk rally for testing health market, home visit, observation and demonstration for 8 weeks. Four instruments were used in this study including demographic data form, knowledge, perceive self-efficacy and health behaviors questionnaire as well as a plaque index measurement form. Data were analyzed by using frequencies, percentage, mean, and standard deviation. T-test was used to analyze the different mean of knowledge, perceived self-efficacy and health behaviors score. Accumulative plaque levels were also test too. After participating in the oral health program, the mean scores of knowledge, perceive self-efficacy and health behavior in experimental group were significantly higher than the comparison group (p-value<0.001). Furthermore, the experimental group had lower plaque levels than  comparison group with statistically significances at 0.05. In summary, the key success factors is oral health program. A group discussion is an important activity that can help to understand community context, lifestyles diabetes patients and health care service in the sanitarium.