BATTERY OPERATED AND MANUAL TOOTH BRUSH

Background: Dental plaque may cause oral problems that may include dentalcaries, periodontal problems, and halitosis. Motivation, awareness and manual dexterity havemuch effect on tooth brushing. The advantages related with manual and battery operated toothbrushing have been reported different in the literature. Objective: To compare the manual andbattery operated tooth brush for plaque removal efficiency. Study Design: Randomized controltrial. Setting: The Dental OPD of Department of Community Dentistry, Liaquat University ofMedical and Health Sciences, Jamshoro. Period: November 2011 to June 2013. Methods: Total100 patients of both genders, aged ≥18 years were included. Patients were equally divided intomanual and battery operated brush groups. The presence of plaque was checked and plaqueindex was recorded. Wilcoxon sign pair test was applied to compare pre and post plaquescore for manual and battery operated tooth brush. Independent sample t test was applied tocompare percent reduction of plaque score between groups. The significance level of P-valuewas up to 0.05. Results: In manual brush group, 27 were male and 23 were female. Meanage was 25.65±5.87 years. In battery operated brush group, 32 were male, 18 were female.Mean age was 29.92±10.37 years. Before manual brushing mean plaque score was 1.88±0.65while after brushing it was reduced to 1.11±0.43. Percent reduction was 40.96%, p=0.0005.Mean plaque score was 1.35±0.37 and 0.69±0.29 before and after brushing respectively inbattery operated brushing. Percent reduction was 48.9%, p=0.0005. Battery operated brushingwas significantly more effective than manual (p=0.023). Conclusion: Battery operated toothbrush was significantly more effective than manual toothbrush. It removes significantly moresupragingival plaque than manual tooth brush.