Dental Health Care Influence on Dental Hygiene of Elementary School Children

Most of Indonesians suffer from dental caries. This is due to bad dental health maintenance. Although in fact, dental caries is a preventable disease. Dental and oral hygiene that is not maintained will cause various dental diseases that will affect general health, although it does not cause death directly, but is also a risk factor for other diseases including: tonsillitis, pharyngitis, otitis media, low birth weight (LBW) , and even heart disease. We undertook this research by evaluating the influence of dental health care towards elementary school children. The subjects are fifth grade in SD Saraswati 4 Denpasar, Indonesia. There are control and intervention groups in this research. The treatment for control group was given leaflet and intervention group was given dental health care with the provision of dental therapist. We evaluate the influence on knowledge, attitude, practice and Debris Index score. The analysis using bivariate test employed Wilcoxon test and univariate test employed Mann-Whitney test. The results show that in intervention group, there is influence of dental health care on knowledge, attitude, practice and Debris Index score of the students. Meanwhile in control group, there is influence on knowledge and attitude but no influence on practice and Debris Index score. Mann-Whitney test shows that there are significant differences in knowledge and attitude, but no significant practice and Debris Index score in intervention and control group. The Debris Index criteria of the intervention group are 100% good with the treatment of dental health care.