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Tongue Hygiene: Knowledge and Practice among School Children in Ajman, UAE

Sara D, Noora OA, Sara S, Sara BM, Dana M, Jayakumary M, Pratibha P, Faheem AK and Aji Gopakumar

Background: Level of oral health knowledge and practice attributes to good oral health. Objectives: The knowledge and practice of school children regarding tongue hygiene and its association with socio-demographic variables are assessed and reported in this article. Materials and methods: This research was conducted among children in one school of grades 6-9 in Ajman, UAE. Data was collected after obtaining permission from the parents and respective school. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from the participants. SPSS version 21 was used for analysis. Inferential statistics was performed to express the association between variables. Results: A total of 175 students from grade six to nine participated in this research, 89 (50.9%) were in the age group 13 years. Among the total number of participants (N=175), 139 (79.4%) supported the importance of cleaning tongue, majority of them (74, 42.3%) believed that the tongue should be cleaned twice daily and 49.1% and 38.9% respectively mentioned that tooth brush and opposite side of the tooth brush should be used for tongue cleaning respectively. Regarding the practice of tongue hygiene 155 (88.6%) were practicing the same, among which 64 (41.3%) reported they clean their tongue twice daily and it was also seen that toothbrush (79, 51.0%) and opposite side of tooth brush (56, 36.1%) were the main materials used for cleaning their tongue. Association of participants’ age and grade with their knowledge was not found to be statistically significant. In the case of participants practice on tongue hygiene, its association with age and gender found to be statistically non-significant. Using Fisher’s exact tests and Pearson chi-square test, a statistically significant association was found between their knowledge and practice on each statement related to tongue hygiene with p value ≤ 0.001. Conclusion: In conclusion, good knowledge had an impact on their practice. Association between knowledge and practice shows that, there is a need to improve the knowledge of school students on tongue hygiene as it will finally lead to a good practice on oral health