Assessment of efficacy of different home prophylactic plaque control methods in orthodontic patients

Objective: the objective of the study is to determine the efficacy of different home prophylactic plaque control methods in patients undergoing orthodontic treatment. material and methods: a cross sectional study was conducted at the department of orthodontics,liaquat university of medical & health sciences,jamshoro and private orthodontic clinics in hyderabad.the patients fulfilling the inclusion criteria were asked to chew the plaque disclosing tablet (eviplacpastilhas),swish it for 30 seconds,then asked to spit out and asked to wash once with drinking water,plaque score was calculated by using turesky modification of quigley hein plaque index. selected patients were given a self-administered questionnaire regarding mechanical means of plaque control. results: in this study 42% were male and 58% females. the mean age was 19.1 + 2.47 years. the mean plaque score was 4.29+ 1.58 in this study. 62.9% patients were using regular tooth brush and 34.3% were using orthodontic tooth brush. 18.8%,6.9%,and 3.7% patients were using inter-dental brush,tooth picks and dental floss respectively. the analysis of variance (anova) test revealed no significant differences in different type of brush. conclusion: it is concluded that majority of orthodontic patients were cleaning their teeth either with orthodontic brush or regular tooth brush and very few patients were using interdental aids to control plaque. both regular and orthodontic brushes were effective in controlling plaque with is statistically insignificant difference. © 2015,liaquat university of medical and health sciences. all rights reserved.