Effect of Oral Health Promoting Program on Oral Health Behavior Among Adults Wearing Braces

Abstract

Periodontal disease is the common side effect of orthodontic treatment owing to the difficulty of tooth cleaning. Traditional oral hygiene instruction was provided to tackle this problem, however, the effect did not last. Therefore, a new oral health educational program promoting oral health literacy (OHL) via experiential learning is developed. The aim of this research and development is to evaluate the effectiveness of the program on OHL and oral health behavior (OHB). Before designing the program, oral health needs will be assessed via survey research, and related factors to OHB will be determined by systematic literature review. The information will be gathered to generate a suitable program for adult orthodontic patients. 60 adults wearing braces will be recruited for experimental design and divided into 2 groups. The participants in the experimental group will be taught with a developed program consisting of OHL and experiential education while the participants in the control group will receive another dental knowledge. Data will be collected by rating scale-based questionnaires of OHL and OHB and plaque index score (PI) graded by the dentist. The documents will be measured at initial, final, and 2 weeks follow-up. 2-way-MANOVA will be used to compare levels of OHL, OHB, and PI between experimental and control groups and also determine the interaction effect between the program and factors obtained from a systematic literature review. The persistence of variables will be analyzed via repeated measure ANOVA. This finding offers implications for promoting OHL and sustainable OHB.