Caspian Journal of Dental Research

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Introduction: Maintaining good oral hygiene is an important factor in health.Toothbrushes are commonly used to maintain oral health and prevent dental disease, but unfortunately how keeping the toothbrush is neglected . The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between toothbrush keeping method and its microbial content.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 60 volunteers were enrolled and divided into 3 groups based on the places of keeping their toothbrushes (bedroom, bathroom and lavatory). The participants were asked to brush once a day for one month using the first toothbrush which had been delivered then the first toothbrushes were gathered and a second toothbrush was delivered. The participants were asked to brush once a day using the second toothbrush for 3 months. All toothbrushes were sent for culture and evaluation. All toothbrushes were evaluated by a blind microbiologist. Toothbrush bristles were washed in BHI broth medium then the resulting liquid was cultured in MacConkey’s agar for gram-negative bacteria and in blood agar and chocolate agar for gram-positive bacteria. Colony counts of Streptococcus mutans, Candida albicans, Pseudomonas, Klebsiella, S. aureus, and E. coli were determined and multiplied by one thousand. Data were analyzed by SPSS version 18 and using Kruskal-Wallis test.

Results: At the end of the study the results showed statistically significant differences in microbial load between the groups (p=0.014). Toothbrushes that were kept in bathroom had highest microbial load.

Conclusions: Toothbrushes kept in the bathroom had the greatest microbial contamination after three months. According to the results of this study, bathroom is the worst place and bedroom is the best place for keeping toothbrushes.

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Introduction: Although though the best way to assess individual’s oral hygiene is to measure plaque and calculus indices, various studies have evaluated an individual’s self-report of oral-hygiene behaviors. The aim of this study was to investigate diagnostic values of self-reporting tool and relationship between current oral self-care behaviors and plaque index (PI).
Materials &Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 260 13-15-year-old students from girls’ schools in Isfahan using two-stage randomized sampling. Data collection tools on oral-hygiene habits were extracted based on available studies and presented in two versions for student and parent.
Then, students’ PI was measured by a trained and calibrated examiner using Silness and Loe PI. The frequency of oral-hygiene behaviors reported by parents and students with PI was measured by McNemar, Kappa and Mann Whitney tests with significance level of 0.05. Sensitivity and specificity of the tools were calculated based on the standard PI.
Results: The PI mean (SD) was 1.07 ±0.5. There was a significant relationship between PI and self-reported toothbrushing status (p = 0.017).
The PI was higher in students with bad toothbrushing habits based on the reports of themselves and their parents as well as with bad flossing habits based on their parents’ reports (p=0.017, 0.001, 0.005). Diagnostic value of children’s self-report and parental report about toothbrushing status indicated low sensitivity (about 35%) and high specificity (about 83%). Positive predictive value was approximately good (about 71%) and negative predictive value was low (about 52%). Diagnostic value of parental report about flossing status represented high sensitivity (85%) and low specificity (26%).
Conclusion: Findings of this study suggested that among such population, students with bad toothbrushing habits based on parental and self-reports are more likely to have undesirable (moderate/poor) PI.

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Introduction: Demanding qualitative dental services calls for hiring competent staff in dental offices. This study was designed to evaluate dental assistants' educational status and ability to perform tasks.
Materials & Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 200 dental assistants working in the offices and clinics of Isfahan, Iran during 2020 were selected using random systematic sampling. The researcher-made evaluation tool with a content validity index of 0.77 was used. Tasks were evaluated by 13 items in 6 sub-scales including communication skills, preparation, radiography, cooperation with dentists, health promotion through prevention and infection control. Moreover, information was requested about the education and training course of the dental assistant. The score of ability was achieved at the range of 0 to 20. The relationship between gender and training course as well as between age and experience level was evaluated with Mann-Whitney test and Spearman correlation.
Results: The most frequent major of the study was accounting. The mean total ability score of the dental assistants was 19.1±6.5, ranging from 17.7 to 20. The highest and lowest ability scores were related to the cooperation with dentists and health promotion through prevention, respectively. The mean ability score had a weak relationship with age but had no significant relationship with experience. The mean ability score only in the area of radiography had a significant relationship with the training course and gender (P=0.012).
Conclusion: Despite the diversity in the degree and field of study, the ability and task status of the assistants was desirable. In the area of health promotion through prevention, there is a need for training and monitoring its implementation.