1. Effectiveness of Smartphone App on Oral Health Knowledge, Behavior, and Practice in Child-Parent Dyads: A Pilot Study.
- Author
-
Bansal, Kalpana, Shamoo, Azeema, Purohit, Bharathi, Nilima, Nilima, Priya, Harsh, Morankar, Rahul, Mathur, Vijay Prakash, and Tewari, Nitesh
- Subjects
- *
DENTAL health education , *HEALTH literacy , *ORAL health , *MOBILE apps , *HEALTH behavior , *DYADS - Abstract
Purpose: To evaluate the effectiveness of an oral health mobile application on the oral health knowledge, behavior, and practices (KBP) of child-parent dyads. Methods: This was a pre-post, single-arm, hospital-based pilot study. Fifty-two dyads were assessed for KBP using a selfstructured questionnaire. The oral hygiene of children was evaluated using the plaque index (PI). The Healthy-Smile Swasth-Muskaan mobile application was installed on the phones of participants, and they were encouraged to use the application regularly. After one month of the app instalation, post-KBP and PI were assessed. Results: A significant improvement was seen in the parents' total knowledge, behavior, and oral hygiene practices of the children (P<0.001). A significant reduction was observed in the mean plaque scores of the children (P<0.001). Conclusions: The Healthy-Smile Swasth-Muskaan mobile app is associated with improved oral health knowledge and behavior of the child-parent dyads and improved oral hygiene of children. Further randomized clinical trials are needed to determine the impact of mobile apps on the oral health knowledge, behavior, and practices of parents and children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023