School Children Knowledge Regarding Dental Hygiene

School health education services are an economical and powerful means of raising standard of community health, especially for the future generations. School is considered as a best setting for the positive health and prevention of diseases, awakening health consciousness in which the child grows and develops. A pre-experimental study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of structured teaching programme on knowledge regarding dental hygiene among middle schoolchildren. The study was conducted in government schools of Jalandhar district, Punjab. Totally 60 students those who met the inclusion and exclusion criteria were selected by convenience sampling technique. A pre-test was taken by using structured questionnaire followed by structured teaching programme. After 7 days post-test was taken. The result of the post-test score revealed that the structured teaching programme had its impact on improving the level of knowledge regarding dental hygiene among middle school children. The overall mean score of pre-test was 14.91 with the S.D. 3.84, whereas in post-test the overall mean score of 23.01 with S.D. of 3.72. The t-test value was -8.1* which is statistically significant at p<0.005 level of significance. After structured teaching programme 68% students had average and 32% had good level of knowledge and no one had poor level of knowledge regarding dental hygiene. The study finding implied that the education had a vital role in improving the knowledge of school children regarding dental hygiene.