Educational program “Healthy smile” for education preschool infants: knowledge on oral health

Abstract

Introduction: early childhood caries is a non-communicable disease of high prevalence worldwide, in Cuba and on the Isle of Youth. Prevention and control approaches encompass changing personal behaviors, working with families and educators, and developing health policies, creating enabling environments, promoting health, and directing health services toward universal health coverage. 
Objective: determine the effectiveness of the “Healthy Smile” program for preschool children. 
Methods: a quasi-experimental before-after research was carried out where the sample was 95 preschool children from the La Demajagua-Atanagildo Cajigal towns in the period 2021-2023. 
Results: before the educational intervention, the level of regular and poor knowledge prevailed in 76,8 % and 16,8 % respectively of the infants with a standard deviation of ±2,5; The level of knowledge increased after implementing the educational program, obtaining a good level of knowledge with 81,1 % (77) with a tendency towards a regular level of knowledge 18,9 % (18); standard deviation of ±1,4. The Student T test gave a value of tcalculated = 13,803, gl = 94 and p value = 0,000; therefore, there was evidence to reject the null hypothesis and accept the investigative hypothesis. 
Conclusions: the implementation of the “Healthy Smile” program, involving families and educators, turned out to be effective since it modified ways and styles of life, also increasing the level of knowledge about oral health of infants