Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39317588›Full record

Trial reportInternational dental journal2025

Effectiveness of a School-Based Oral Health Promotion Program on Dental Caries Among Iraqi School Children: A Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial.

Hadi Ghasemi, Hanan Fadhil Alautry, Mohammed Hossein Khoshnevisan, Mahshid Namdari

Abstract readRandomized Controlled Trial
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Trial report in International dental journal, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
6citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

6 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Trial
  2. Article
  3. Review
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Hadi GhasemiDepartment of Community Oral Health, School of Dentistry, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Hanan Fadhil AlautryDepartment of Community Oral Health, School of Dentistry, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; Department of Pediatric and Preventive Dentistry, School of Dentistry, Wasit University, Wasit, Iraq. Electronic address: hananfadhil@uowasit.edu.iq.
Mohammed Hossein KhoshnevisanDepartment of Community Oral Health, School of Dentistry, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; Dental Research Centre, Research Institute of Dental Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Mahshid NamdariDepartment of Biostatistics, School of Allied Medical Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

aimTo assess the effectiveness of a school-based oral health promotion program on dental caries of permanent dentition among Iraqi children.

methodsA cluster randomised controlled trial was conducted with a parallel study group, comprising 8-10-year-old schoolchildren, 186 in each group. At the beginning of the study, subjects in the intervention group received oral health education and a single dose of 5% sodium fluoride varnish for all teeth surfaces while the control group only received oral health education. The primary outcome data in this study were caries increment and incidence after six months. The secondary outcome data was any change in oral health behaviors in the students of both groups after 3 months. The caries status was recorded according to International Caries Detection and Assessment System (ICDAS). Statistical analyses included the Chi-square test, McNemar test, independent t-test, simple and multiple logistic regression models.

resultsStudy participants included 372 children with no significant difference in baseline characteristics between intervention and control groups. An increase was evident in the mean scores of DMFS, DMFT, number of children with DMFT > 0, and DS > 0 for both control and intervention groups at six-month follow-up but this increase was significantly higher for the control than intervention group (P < .001). Among all variables included in the multiple logistic regression model, just being in the intervention group showed a significant effect in which children in the control group had a 4.2-fold (95% CI: 2.36-7.54) greater chance for developing new caries than children in the intervention group. There was a statistically significant increase in the percentage of children with favourable levels of behaviors between baseline and 3-month follow-up (P < .05, P < .001).

conclusionProviding access to oral health services such as oral examination, fluoride varnish application, and oral health education to reduce dental caries and improve oral health practices seems to be effective among primary schoolchildren.

Indexed as

Dental CariesHealth Education, DentalHealth PromotionOral HealthSchool Health ServicesCariostatic AgentsChildDMF IndexFemaleFluorides, TopicalHumansIraqMaleSodium FluorideCariostatic AgentsFluorides, TopicalSodium FluorideCluster randomised controlled trialDental cariesFluorideOral health educationPromotion programSchoolchildren

Identifiers

PMID39317588
PMCPMC11976541

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.