A new oral hygiene routine using a digital screen
It’s easy to get stuck giving oral hygiene advice in a similar way day in and day out. Here’s a study that highlights how you can get out of that same old routine and into a new, digital one!
Study design and participants
This parallel, randomised, 2treatment study, A randomised controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of personalised oral hygiene advice delivered via video technology, was carried out at a dental hospital by a UK dental school team. Inclusive criteria were:
- Adults currently not going through orthodontic treatment
- Plaque score of ≥2.0 as assessed by Turesky Plaque Index (TPI)
- >10 % bleeding on probing (BOP) across all sites - but less than 50%
- No periodontal pocketing greater than or equal to 4 mm
- Using a manual toothbrush
- Having a smartphone and being able to play videos on it
64 participants were randomised, 57 of them completed the study; 28 in the intervention group and 29 in the control group. The median age was 45 (20-79), and 81% were women.
Intervention and control groups
At baseline, participants were assessed for TPI and BOP, and filled out the Patient Oral Health Questionnaire as well as the Patient Attitudes to Oral Health Questionnaire.
People in the intervention group were given oral hygiene advice (OHA) specific to their mouth, indicating which teeth/areas needed more attention and how best to clean these areas, and included tailored instruction with interdental brushes. Everything was recorded using the participant’s own smartphones, which means the participants could look at it whenever they felt the need to refresh what they had learned.
People in the control group were given verbal OHA according to the standard of the general dental services, which also included basic instructions with interdental brushes.
All participants were given interdental brushes, a manual toothbrush and toothpaste.
Results
After three months, all participants filled out the questionnaires again, which this time also included some questions forhe intervention group on the video instructions; whether they were useful and how often they had been used. Plaque and bleeding were assessed.
The mean percentage of sites with BOP and the mean Turesky plaque score were similar in both groups at baseline (33.53 for the control group and 34.78 for the intervention group). At three months, it had improved in both groups, to 26.73 and 22.58. That means the intervention group showed a statistically significant larger improvement in BOP (p-value 0.011). Plaque scores also improved more in the intervention group, however the results were not statistically significant.
Also, there was a significantly greater increase in the use of interdental brushes in the intervention as compared to the control group. At baseline, 16 participants reported using an interdental brush and at three months, it had increased to 24 participants.
What about the videos?
All but one participant in the intervention group (n=28) used the video between study visits: 4 daily, 12 weekly, and 4 monthly. Overall, 66.7% rated the video as very useful and 22.2% as fairly useful. This means that almost 9 out of 10 of the participants found some use in the videos. Great!
Closing remarks
In short, this study’s purpose was to see if instructional personalised short videos could improve participants' oral health after three months. The videos were used as tailored patient oral hygiene education tools and were compared to conventional OHA delivered in general dental services. The results showed that the personalised short videos led to better oral health outcomes than the standard advice after three months. The null hypothesis was rejected, confirming the effectiveness of using these videos.
Better cleaning, healthier mouths
In this study, BOP scores shifted from generalised (>30%) to localised (10–30%) gingivitis in both groups, showing that participants performed regular, effective plaque removal, good enough to improve oral health. BOP reduction was significantly greater in the intervention group, probably because they used interdental brushes more effectively and more often, supporting the efficacy of the personalised video OHA.
