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CC BY 4.0 · Journal of Health and Allied Sciences NU 2024; 14(04): 441-447
DOI: 10.1055/s-0043-1775589
Review Article

Generating Evidence Through Meta-Analysis on Awareness among Parents Regarding Pit and Fissure Sealant as a Preventive Dental Treatment

Kabir S. Dash
1   Department of Public Health Dentistry, Dr. D.Y. Patil Dental College and Hospital, Dr. D.Y. Patil Vidyapeeth, Pimpri, Pune, Maharashtra, India
,
Anmol Mathur 
1   Department of Public Health Dentistry, Dr. D.Y. Patil Dental College and Hospital, Dr. D.Y. Patil Vidyapeeth, Pimpri, Pune, Maharashtra, India
,
Ladusingh Rajpurohit
1   Department of Public Health Dentistry, Dr. D.Y. Patil Dental College and Hospital, Dr. D.Y. Patil Vidyapeeth, Pimpri, Pune, Maharashtra, India
,
Sonal Kale
2   Independent Researcher, Pune, Maharashtra, India
,
Sneha Kalpe
1   Department of Public Health Dentistry, Dr. D.Y. Patil Dental College and Hospital, Dr. D.Y. Patil Vidyapeeth, Pimpri, Pune, Maharashtra, India
,
Priyanka Kharat
1   Department of Public Health Dentistry, Dr. D.Y. Patil Dental College and Hospital, Dr. D.Y. Patil Vidyapeeth, Pimpri, Pune, Maharashtra, India
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Abstract

Dental caries is a global burden for oral health. Pit and fissure sealants applied in childhood can help prevent caries; however, knowledge and awareness among parents regarding the prophylactic benefit of dental sealants are uncertain. This review was conducted with an aim to assess the awareness of parents toward pit and fissure sealants globally. A bibliographic search in the biomedical databases was conducted from inception till December 2022 with no restrictions on the language. The quality assessment of the studies was performed using the quality assessment checklist for analytical cross-sectional studies. The search found 12 eligible publications that were included in the review. Intraexaminer reliability Cohen's kappa (κ = 0.96) was assessed between two reviewers who independently screened, extracted data from included studies, and assessed risk of bias. Ten studies were found to have high risk while two had low risk of bias. The knowledge and awareness among parents regarding dental sealants ranged from 10.4 to 71%. The pooled data of 12 studies showed the overall knowledge of parents toward pit and fissure sealant to be 29%. Parents are found to be aware and supportive toward the usage of dental sealant as a caries preventive agent for their children. However, the level of awareness regarding pit and fissure sealant in this review varied from low to high which was not dependent on the parent's level of education, and overall awareness was found to be poor. Moreover, majority of the studies had high risk of bias. Future studies should strive for better methodological standards to avoid bias.

Keywords

awareness - parents - pit and fissure sealants - meta-analysis

Ethical Approval

This review has obtained institutional research committee approval.




Publication History

Article published online:
15 November 2023

© 2023. The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, permitting unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction so long as the original work is properly cited. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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