MICROBIAL CONTAMINATION

Toothbrushes play an essential role in oral hygiene and is commonlypracticed on daily basis to clean the oral cavity. It can serve as a reservoir for microorganismsin healthy and infected person. Objectives: To isolate the bacterial contaminants on usedtoothbrushes and to compare the type of bacterial growth in capped and uncapped toothbrushesamong general population of Karachi. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Setting: Study wasconducted among general population of Karachi. Hamdard College of Medicine and Dentistry,Hamdard University, Karachi. Period: February to September 2014. Methodology: Usingconvenient sampling technique, data was collected from subjects of different socioeconomicstatus. Toothbrushes for culture was collected under standard precautions to observe asepticconditions. Descriptive analysis was done for all independent variables using SPSS version20. The frequency of various bacterial contaminants on used toothbrushes were determinedand chi square test was used to observe the association of bacterial growth among cappedand uncapped toothbrushes. P-value 3 months (50.0%), brushing teethtwice a day (62.3%) and keeping toothbrushes uncapped were (66.0%). Statistically significant(P<0.05) difference was found between capped and uncapped toothbrushes and presenceof Klebsiella and Pseudomonas. Conclusion: The study concluded that used toothbrushesare significantly contaminated with bacteria which may cause serious health problems amongindividuals and families.