It was a short term prospective pilot study on a group of 116 secondary school students.
To assess the feasibility of using the services of school teachers to promote oral hygiene in secondary school students and compare the effectiveness of dental health education (DHE) offered by school teachers on a fortnightly basis with what is offered by dental professionals at three- monthly intervals.
Six secondary schools were randomly selected. The base-line Oral Hygiene Index simplified (OHI-S) and Plaque index (PI) scores for all the students were recorded. The teachers were trained on dental health facts. The six schools were divided into three groups of two schools with different intervention techniques: Group 1- Schools given no health education, Group 2 – Schools given health education by their school teachers on a fortnightly basis together with simple screening for deposits of gross calculus , Group 3 – Schools which were given health education by dental professionals at intervals of three months without any screening. Grade nine students were selected for pre and post intervention evaluation. The second examination was done six months following the intervention to find out the OHI-S and Plaque index scores. The examination was done by three trained and calibrated dentists. Data analysis was done with SPSS 16 with relevant statistical tests.