Sidra Mohiuddin, Sohail Saadat, Nighat Nisar.
Oral Health Knowledge and Oral Hygiene Practices among Private and Public School Teachers of Karachi City.
J Dow Uni Health Sci Jan ;9(2):64-70.

Background: Oral health education and promotion at the level of school is considered as priority for schoolchildren since primary level of learning begins from school. Furthermore, school-teachers serve as an institution for motivating their school-children on daily basis to achieve healthy principles of living. In addition, it has also been suggested that spreading oral health awareness by approaching school-teachers have shown to be cost effective and practical policy. Objective: To determine school-teacher's oral health knowledge and oral hygiene practices among private and public schools of Karachi city. Methodlogy: A cross sectional study of 165 school-teachers, were conducted among nine different towns of Karachi city. At the first stage, nine towns out of eighteen towns were selected randomly through cluster sampling. In the next stage, from each selected town one private and one public school were identified randomly. Selection of school-teachers were performed through non probability convenience sampling. After selection subjects were requested to fill a validated self reported structured close ended questionnaire related to their oral health knowledge and oral hygiene practices. Results: Regarding oral health knowledge and oral hygiene practices, the mean scores of oral health knowledge in between public and private school-teachers (Mean difference = -2.2, 95% CI -2.45- -1.95) and was statistically significant (p=0.00) whereas, the mean scores of oral hygiene practices in between them (Mean difference = -0.64, 95% CI -0.78- -0.49) was statistically significant (p=0.00). Furthermore, overall scores of schoolteacher's (n=165) oral health knowledge and oral hygiene practices were found to be inadequate followed by poor practices. Conclusion: The conclusion drawn from the study were that school-teacher's oral health knowledge and oral hygiene practices were also found to be inadequate and poor. Hence, there is an urgent need for training and motivation of school-teacher's concerning oral health education and promotion through school based community outreach programs.

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