School based intervention programme on gingival health of 10-12 years Old Government Aided School Children of Basavangudi in Bangalore City – A randomized controlled trial

Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness of a school based intervention program on gingival health of 10–12 year old government aided school children of Basavangudi in Bangalore city. Methods (Design): A 6 month randomized controlled trial was conducted on 264 subjects, aged 10–12 years to evaluate the effectiveness of school based intervention (oral health education) given in three different forms against a control group which received no intervention. These schools were randomly assigned as group A (control), Group B (class work), Group C (parental) and Group D (both classwork and parental). Intervention was given once every two months and their oral hygiene practices recorded by a questionnaire. The changes were recorded using Silness and Loe Plaque index and Loe and Silness Gingival index at pre and post intervention (2 months after the last intervention). Student's t test and one way ANOVA was used to compare the mean differences between pre and post intervention scores, followed by Post hoc test for within group differences. Results: Reduction observed in plaque and gingival scores following interventions were statistically significant (p<0.001). Within groups comparison revealed significant differences for group C (p=0.002) and group B (p=0.021) for gingival scores, this was not observed in Plaque scores. A Hawthorne effect was also observed in control group. An improvement was also observed in oral hygiene practices. Conclusion: Parental involvement was found to improve gingival health. Oral health education given once every 2 months was found to reduce plaque and gingival scores.