Self-learning Dental Health Media for Thai Elementary School Students

Methods: The self-learning media package comprised of two VCDs and one pamphlet. Media contents were knowledge of characteristics, cause, prevention and treatment of dental caries and gingivitis. Each section of VCDs was approximately ten minutes and the pamphlet was used for summarization. The media was tested in 101 fifth and sixth grade students, aged between 10-15 years old (mean = 11.72 ± 0.69), in Donpud Public school, Saraburi Province, Thailand. Twenty pre- and post- test parallel questions were developed to test knowledge of the participants.Their satisfaction toward designed media was also evaluated by three rating scale questionnaires.

Results: The media efficiency was 85/77 and effectiveness index was 0.709. The average pre- and post-test scores were 11.97 ± 1.986 (59.85%) and 17.66 ± 1.699 (88.30%) respectively. Following a single viewing of the media, the students significantly improved their dental health knowledge (Wilcoxon Two-Related-Samples Test, p=0.000). Participants' satisfaction on media was high on dental caries media and moderate on gingivitis.

Conclusion: The self-learning dental health media is effective and its efficiency is enough to improve dental health knowledge about dental caries and gingivitis of the late primary school students.