The Effect of the Oral Hygiene Instruction on Awareness, Attitude, and Practice of a Group of Patients

Statement of Problem: Plaque control and its instruction is an important part of dental treatments which guarantees the long term success of the periodontal and dental care. Purpose: The purpose of this research was to evaluate the efficiency of the oral hygiene instruction given to the patients on the amount of awareness and improving their attitude and practice. Method and Material: For this purpose, a number of 100 patients were selected randomly and instructed oral hygiene methods. The patients filled out a questionnaire including 14 questions derived from OHI-S questionnaire of WHO at the beginning of the study and at the intervals of one and two weeks and 1-month. The plaque index of all the patients was measured by an examiner on the base of O’Leary plaque index. After comparing the  pre and post oral health questionnaires, changes in the rate of attitude, awareness and practice of patients were analyzed with paired t-test. Results: One month after oral hygiene instruction, the patients’ awareness and attitude increased by 46% ( p = 0.021) and  123% ( p = 0.018) respectively. The plaque index decreased by 43.27% ( p = 0.018). All of the parameters showed a significant difference from baseline ( p <0.05). Conclusion: The results of this study showed that repeated oral hygiene instruction makes a significant improvement on the amount of awareness, attitude and practice of patients in relation to plaque control. Key words: Oral hygiene instruction, Plaque index, Awareness, Attitude, Practice