Impact of Oral Health Education on Children’s Self-perceived Oral Health and Quality of Life: A School-Based Study

Oral health is an important indicator of child well-being. Childhood caries is frequent, may cause sequelae, and compromise the ability to eat, smile, and speak, as well as the child’s mental and social health. The Child Perceptions Questionnaire (CPQ8-10) assesses the impact of oral diseases on quality of life across four domains: 1) Oral symptoms; 2) Functional limitations; 3) Emotional well-being; and 4) Social well-being. This study evaluated children’s perceptions of oral health before and after an oral hygiene educational activity.

Eighty-five 8-year-old children from a public municipal school in São Paulo were included. They underwent clinical examinations using the dmft/DMFT indices and completed the CPQ8-10. The children participated in an interactive lecture on oral health with audiovisual resources, received an illustrated booklet, and were provided with a kit containing a toothbrush and fluoride toothpaste. After 3 months, both the CPQ8-10 and clinical examinations for dmft/DMFT indices were repeated.

When comparing baseline and 3-month follow-up, no statistical difference was observed in clinical indices: the mean dmft was 1.38 and the mean DMFT was 0.06. However, the CPQ8-10 mean score showed a statistically significant reduction in the functional limitation domain, decreasing from 15.08 before the lecture to 12.09 after the lecture. Significant differences were also observed in items related to children’s self-perception of their oral condition.

Few studies have conducted long-term follow-ups, and evidence from other reviews suggests that short-term oral health behavioural change interventions are not sustained in the long term unless changes in the social environment support the new behaviours; however, the clinical significance of these changes for public health remains uncertain. Further longitudinal studies are needed to investigate the long-term impact of untreated carious lesions and their consequences on children’s oral health-related quality of life, as well as to assess the effectiveness of school-based educational programmes, emphasising the need to implement new programmes in public schools to improve children's oral health.

The present study demonstrated that a school-based oral health educational intervention was capable of positively influencing children’s self-perceived oral health and oral health-related quality of life, even in the absence of measurable short-term changes in clinical caries indices.