An evaluation of a school-based comprehensive public oral health care programme.

This study evaluates a comprehensive oral health care programme seven years after it started in 1986 at a public dental health clinic in Cape Town. Five primary schools served by the clinic were selected for a community trial. Three schools were randomly allocated to receive the programme and two to a non-participating control group. An evaluation to assess the effectiveness of the programme was carried out by comparing the mean DMFS scores of the experimental (programme) schools with control (non-programme) schools. One hundred and ten children who entered the programme in 1986 and 102 non-programme children of similar age were examined and compared in 1992. In the experimental group the mean DMFS score was 1.94 compared to a mean DMFS of 6.12 in the control group. The percentage of caries-free children in the experimental group was 62.5 per cent and in the control group 37.5 per cent. The frequency distribution of the DMFS scores showed that one subject from the programme group had a score of > or = 15 and thirteen non-programme subjects had scores > or = 15. All the comparisons between the two groups reported above were highly significant (P < 0.005). The study shows that the programme has been very effective in reducing the prevalence of dental caries in the schools that received the programme.

RCT Entities:   Population Interventions Outcomes