Evaluation of dental promotion and prevention program on children age 6 and 9 monthsold atsub district health promotinghospital in Phitsanulok province during 2012-2014

Abstract

This study was an evaluation of promotion and prevention dental healthprogram on children aged 6 and 9 months old at sub-district health promoting hospitals where have full time dental nurse in Phitsanulok province.Children start registered for this program between January and December 2012. Parents were going to take their kids for vaccination at age 6,9,12,18,24,36 months. Dental nurse provided an oral health examination, practicing parent skill to brush their child’s teeth, oral hygiene instruction for parents, fluoride varnish application for children and giving toothbrush for children. At the end of this program, May 2014, children were evaluated oral health status by a dentist, while their parents were interviewed by another staff and data were collected from services record. There were 257 parents joined this program, 96.1 % were female, most of them aged 20-39 years old, 57.2%  were mothers, 40.9 % graduated from primary school, most of them were employees and housewives (32.7 % and 30.4 % respectively).The percentage of male children joined the program were 51.8 % and 73.2 % of all children joined at the age 6 months old.The services received in this program had no significant with dmft scores in both groups (p>0.05). While, the frequency of children’s tooth brushing by their parents had a statistically significant relationship with dmftscores in both groups (p=0.002, p=0.047).After the end of this program, dmft and dmfs scores of children who attended this program at the age of 9 months old (average age was 31.4 months old) was approximately two-fold higher than children who attended this program at 6-months old(average age was 27.9 months old). However, there were nearly percentage of dental caries which was 15.9 and 15.4 per cent. The numbers of non-active dental caries (Decay 0) were closely in both groups, 0.96 teeth/child for the group of 6 months old and 0.94 teeth/child for the group of 9 months old. Moreover, there was a statistically significant relationship between dmft score and the age of joining theprogram (p=0.030).