Oral hygiene practices of school going children during Covid-19 pandemic in Kasur

Abstract

Background and objectives: To assess the oral hygiene practices of the school going children during the Covid-19 pandemic in district Kasur.
Methods: It is a cross-sectional study conducted in 02 RHCs, Phool Nagar and Mustafa Abad of district Kasur. A total of three hundred eighty three school going children were asked about their oral hygiene practices, a pre-validated caries risk assessment checklist (Annexure 1) and Dental Caries detection form (Annexure 3), Results were collected and analyzed using appropriate descriptive statistics.
Results: Approximately 383 participants were part of the study. Majority of the respondents reported i.e. 60.3% didn’t pay any visit to the dentist in the past 12 months. Majority of the respondents i.e. 79.6% said pain or trouble was the main reason for the visit to the dentist where as 10.4% said for a routine dental checkup and 300 (78.3%) were females with a median age range of 13
years (23.2%) and 12 years (17.5%).
Conclusion: Spreading awareness is a major aspect to control the transmission of the SARS-COV-2, as it’s a highly contagious
virus. The results of this study highlighted specific groups to be targeted for educational programs regarding oral hygiene practices during the pandemics like COVID-19 and this can provide initial basic data to the government to work on such
programs.