School-based supervised toothbrushing (STB) vs no intervention: Dental caries increment, DMFT/dmft (whole-tooth level)
- Population
- Children in school or kindergarten settings (aged 3-14 years)
- Intervention
- School-based supervised toothbrushing (STB)
- Comparison
- no intervention
- Outcome
- Dental caries increment, DMFT/dmft (whole-tooth level)
School-based supervised toothbrushing has no statistically significant effect on whole-tooth caries (DMFT/dmft SMD 0.05, 95% CI -0.27 to 0.37; ungraded).
What each review found
Include earlier review versions| Finding | Effect | Studies | GRADE certainty |
|---|---|---|---|
School-based supervised toothbrushing (STB) vs No intervention Dental caries increment, DMFT/dmft (whole-tooth level) · Children in school or kindergarten settings (aged 3-14 years) · 3-4 years follow-up, School/kindergarten (community-based) School-based supervised toothbrushing has no statistically significant effect on whole-tooth caries (DMFT/dmft SMD 0.05, 95% CI -0.27 to 0.37; ungraded). The effectiveness of school-based supervised tooth brushing intervention for preventing dental caries: a… (2025) All outcomes | SMD 0.05 [-0.27, 0.37] | 2 studies · 1239 participants | GRADE not reported |
Findings are shown side by side, never pooled across reviews.
The reviews
| Review | Searched up to | Included studies | AMSTAR 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| The effectiveness of school-based supervised tooth brushing intervention for preventing dental caries: a systematic review and… 2025 All outcomes | February 2025 | 16 | Low / Low |
Studies behind the findings
The primary studies the full-text reviews tie to this outcome. Reviews with headline outcomes only do not list them here.
- The efficacy of a school‐based caries preventive program: a 4‐year study · 2006 · included by 1 of these review
- Effect evaluation of an oral health education programme in primary schools in Tanzania · 1997 · included by 1 of these review
- Frazão 2011 · included by 1 of these review
- Helderman 1997 · included by 1 of these review
- Al-Jundi 2006 · included by 1 of these review
- Winter 2017 · included by 1 of these review
How reviews are matched to this question
Reviews word the same question differently. Four decision models (TypeSafe's Jev, Liquid AI's d1-ultra, SubQ Snap and Baseten's Elephant) judged each wording of the population, intervention, comparator and outcome against the others; two wordings count as the same when at least three of them agree and none clearly disagrees, and findings count as this question only when all four elements match. Timing, setting and subgroup never split a question: they are shown on each finding.