Evaluation of knowledge and awareness of pediatric oral health among school teachers of Hazaribag before and after oral health education.

Abstract

Background: Oral health education of school teachers will surely have a direct influence on evolving oral habits at an inchoate stage and assuredly help to garner oral health knowledge in children.  The aim of this study was to assess the knowledge of school teachers about pediatric oral health and the assessment of the impact of a webinar training intervention in improving their knowledge.  Methods: A total of 153 teachers participated in the research. A self‑administered, 30‑item questionnaire was designed in the English language and consisted of two sections: the first section included demographic details; the second section included 30 questions on pediatric oral health with three divided subsections as follows: Subsection A (including 7 questions): Questionnaire on general pediatric oral health, Subsection B (including 9 questions): Questionnaire on preventive pediatric oral health, Subsection C (including 14 questions): Questionnaire on clinical pediatric oral health. After receiving Google forms, all the participants participated in an oral health education webinar program using a web-based online education training protocol on the Zoom platform. After this webinar training session, post-training assessment of the oral health knowledge scores was done using the same online semi‑structured self‑administered questionnaire.  Results: The inadequacy in knowledge of school teachers was evident and they need to be trained in many preventive and clinical protocols of pediatric oral health. However, a highly statistically significant increase (P < 0.001) in mean knowledge scores of school teachers was seen after a 1‑day training program.  Conclusion: The training method was well received and improved the knowledge of school teachers on pediatric oral health.