School-based educational intervention to improve children’s oral health-related behaviors in rural Bangladesh

Abstract

Children in rural Bangladesh have limited access to oral health services. As a pilot project, a one-day one-time oral health educational intervention was conducted at a primary school in Tangail district in Bangladesh. This study assessed the effect of this educational intervention on the children’s oral behaviors using controlled pre- and post-intervention design. Fifty-two students at the intervention school and 37 students at a control school agreed to participate in this study. A baseline survey was conducted for children at both schools using a standardized semi-structured questionnaire. Children at the intervention school received face-to-face dental exercises and a group seminar. Six months after the intervention, a follow-up survey was conducted at both schools to compare changes in children’s oral behaviors at the two schools. The increase in the percentage of intervention-school participants who reported brushing their teeth two or more times per day between the baseline and follow-up surveys was 7.6 times greater than that in the control group (95% CI= 1.7–35.1; p<0.009). The increase in the percentage of intervention-school participants who reported brushing their teeth before bed between the two surveys was 7.3 times greater than that in the control group (95% CI=1.6–34.0; p<0.001). The findings suggest the importance of skill-based intervention, in collaboration with dentists, school teachers, parents, and community health educators. Future studies on the effectiveness of school-based educational interventions should consider longer-term sustainable behavioral changes in children’s oral health.South East Asia Journal of Public Health Vol.7(2) 2017: 27-33

Health and Disease among Primary School Children: A Snapshot from Rural Bangladesh

“…Bhuiyan et al reported that primary school children have limited awareness about oral health and poor knowledge of oral hygiene habits and it creates muchneeded niche for implementing school-based oral health awareness and education programs [29]. This is also supported by other studies in Bangladesh [30][31][32]. There was also prevalence of CSOM, external angular dermoid, and inguinal hernia.…”

Nutritional status and prevalence of helminthic infection among primary school children in Bangladesh: A cross‐sectional study

“…Poor health behavioral practices, including insufficient awareness and knowledge, increase the risk of malnutrition and infectious diseases (Sujan et al, 2020). Moreover, proper sanitation and hygiene facilities in the school setting also need to be considered (Jordanova et al, 2015), and it is an ardent necessity to place school nurses and health education at the primary school level, especially in LMICs (Yang et al, 2018) to improve children's health status, hygiene behavior, awareness, and knowledge (Furukawa et al, 2018; Kurscheid et al, 2018).…”