Oral Health Education and Promotion Programmes: Meta-Analysis of 17-Year Intervention

Oral Health Education and Promotion Interventions (OHEPIs) focus on improving knowledge, to adopt favourable oral health behaviours that can enhance oral health and clinical oral health. However, no meta-analyses exist that evaluate the effectiveness of OHEPI programmes. The aim of this meta-analysis was to determine the effectiveness of oral health education and promotion programmes.

The PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane and ScienceDirect databases from years 2000 to 2016 were searched. Eleven studies based on Participant, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome Study (PICOs) and quality assessment criteria were selected for the systematic review and meta-analysis. Meta-analysis of the data was carried out using the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis V2.0 software. As the heterogeneity of subgroups was higher than 50%, an effect random model was used for the computation of average odds ratio.

The heterogeneity of the studies was higher than 50% (I²  = 92%, P < .001); therefore, the random effect model was used to calculate the average odds ratio. 3 subgroups, (A) programme outcomes (long- and short-term outcomes), (B) age groups and (C) the follow-up periods after the intervention, were extracted for the intervention review. Overall, programme outcome and the 3-month subgroup follow-up were both significantly increased (OR = 2. 41, CI: 1.3, 4.7; P = .005) (OR = 1.14, CI: 1.01, 1.30; P = .03) in terms of odds effectiveness of the interventions. But the age subgroups showed no significance (OR = 0.93, CI: 0.74, 1.17; P = .52) in odds effectiveness of the interventions.

This study found that past OHEPIs are effective and positive impacts on dental visits, attitudes, as well as brushing and flossing behaviours during 3 months post-intervention among children.