KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICES OF PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS REGARDING ORAL HEALTH IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SCHOOLS OF RAWALPINDI

KAP of oral health in public schools

Abstract

Objective: The study was carried out to assess the knowledge, attitude and practices of school teachers of primary schools regarding oral health and their participation in oral health education.
Study Design: This was a cross sectional analytical study. Place and Duration of Study: The study was carried out at public and private Primary Schools of Rawalpindi city from 01 June 2014 to 25 November 2014.
Material and Methods: There were 351 private schools in the Rawalpindi city. In public sector, F.G public schools of Rawalpindi city were selected from the list provided by the F. G Directorate. The list had total 70 public schools and schools are selected because of they are the main part of the community. The sampling technique is the ”multistage sampling.” It is a type of probability sampling. In the first stage, sampling frame was developed by listing of public and private primary schools of Rawalpindi city followed by the computer generated random sampling. In the next stage, teachers were selected by using random lottery technique.
Results: 105(60%) teachers out of 173 public schools teachers did not know about dental caries at all. 8(4.5%) of public school teachers wrote that caries is the enamel defect. 44 (25.1%) teachers of private schools were unaware of the term dental caries. 65(37.1%) teachers correctly stated dental caries as the tooth destruction due to bacterial action which is higher than public schools. 120(68.2%) of private school teachers reported that they prefer tooth brushing at morning and night as compared to the 106(61.3%) public teachers. Practices regarding oral health was significant p< 0.001. Oral health education is being practiced in private schools in one form or the other. The study revealed a lot of important findings which needs further studies to be carried out.
Conclusion: More studies are to be done in schools regarding oral health so that policy can be made to cover all the areas for maximum results. Time and financial resources was the limitations of the study.