Evaluation of My First Toothbrush Program in Thailand ( 1992 - 1997 ).

Abstract

The Dental Health Division, Department of Health, Ministry of Public Health, has launched a program “ My First Toothbrush ” since 1992 to integrate oral health promotion for preschool children with Well Baby Clinic activities. The program provides a proper toothbrush to every 1 1/2 year child who came to receive 1" booster dose of vaccination. The toothbrush was used as a media to provide oral health education and enhance the parents to brush their child's teeth. The aim of this study was to evaluate the program by using rapid survey method. The 2- stage-30 cluster sampling with probability proportional to size was used to select 3,558 mothers or caretakers of children aged 1 1/2 to 4 years from 11 provinces. The results showed that in the 5th year of the program, there were 48.3% received the 1st toothbrushes and 71.9% received dental health education. 51.3% brushed children's teeth and 20.5% stated that they did everyday. The samples who received the 1% toothbrushes performed brushing their children's teeth in higher proportion than those who did not receive with statistical significance (p < 0.0001). Although the study showed the effect of 1st toothbrush on children oral care habit in parents, the coverage in target group is rather low. To raise the coverage and maintain the activities of the program in a long run, the causes of low coverage should be investigated.