Effectiveness of Peer Education of Tooth-Brushing in Children

Dear Editor, Dental caries and periodontal diseases are still considered the most frequent oral ailments and considered as public health problems, which could result in the loss of dental structures and its support. Although dentistry has experienced great advances, the prevention of dental caries and periodontal diseases are still the best form of treatment. 1 Therefore, education of patients deserves the most attention in preventive dentistry. As children and teenagers are more receptive to new knowledge, they can respond to trainings with greater efficiency. However, when working with the children, the education methods must be attractive and arouse the children's attention. 1 The tendency for people to pay attention to their peers also may be utilized in educating for oral health. 2 Since the 1960s, peer education became an alternative approach to the expert status of the professional 3-5 and is originated from a fact that young people learn a lot from one another as part of their everyday lives. 3,5,6 In Iran, 52% of the population are younger than 20 years. So Iran is one of the youngest populations in the world 7 which the level of oral health is still not satisfactory , particularly among children. 8 In this cross-sectional study, 117 school children of both genders (59 girls and 58 boys), aged 8 years were selected randomly by random cluster sampling method from primary schools of four areas in Shiraz, Fars Province, Southern Iran. One school was selected from each area and about 30 children were selected from each school. Only children whose parents had signed the consent form were included in this study. The selected students were randomly divided to two groups including 57 children: Dentist education and 60 children: Peer education. First, in group 1; the students were educated by one general dentist about tooth brushing. Then from the students of that group, one volunteer child with good attitudes and communication ability was chosen to educate tooth brushing to the second group. In both groups, after education; comparable toothbrushes with toothpaste were delivered to accomplish tooth brushing which they educated. The plaque index was scored according to manufacturer's instructions before and immediately after the tooth brushing. 1,9 To evaluate the effect of education method on dental plaque index decrease, Student's t test was used. The significance level was 0.05. There was no significant difference between the mean score of plaque index before education in both …