The Influence of a School-Based Online Educational Intervention on Oral Health Behaviors of Primary School Students during the Covid-19 Pandemic: Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior

Dental caries are one of the children’s most common chronic diseases. This study aims to examine the influence of school-based online education on oral hygiene behaviors during COVID-19.

This quasi-experimental study was conducted on 120 students in the 5th and 6th grades of primary school in Shazand, Iran, from February 2022 to April 2022. The participants were selected by cluster sampling method and divided into two groups; control (n=60) and experimental (n=60). The data collection instrument checked the participants’ demographic information, constructions of the theory of planned behavior (TPB), and oral health behaviors before and after the intervention. The experimental group participated in four online educational sessions (each session was 1 hour) in SHAD software. Descriptive statistics, Chi-square test, and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) were used to analyze the data via SPSS version 23.

The mean ±standard deviation (SD) of the students’ age was 11.50 ± 0.50. Before the intervention, there was no significant relationship between the oral hygiene behavior of the two groups and the TPB constructions (p>0.05). A month after the intervention, the mean scores of the oral hygiene behavior, attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and intention significantly increased in the experimental group (p<0.001). After the intervention, both twice brushing a day and once a day flossing significantly increased in the experimental group; from 28.2 % to 73.3 % and from 50 % to 75 %, respectively (p<0.001).

Rendering the results of this study, online educational intervention based on the theory of planned behavior promotes the oral health behaviors of primary school students.