Effectiveness of Waterpik^® for oral hygiene maintenance in orthodontic fixed appliance patients: A randomised controlled trial.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

To establish whether the use of a WaterPik^® alongside a manual toothbrush (WaterPik^® + MTB) is more effective for maintaining oral hygiene compared to the use of a manual toothbrush alone (MTB) in patients wearing fixed orthodontic appliances.

Design

A single-centre, two-arm, parallel-group, single-blind, randomised controlled clinical trial with a 1:1 allocation ratio.

Setting

Orthodontic department at York Hospital, York Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, UK.

Participants

A total of 40 fit and well participants, aged 10-20 years, being treated with upper and lower fixed orthodontic appliances.

Methods

Participants were randomly allocated, using stratified block randomisation, to the control group (MTB) or intervention group '(Waterpik^® + MTB)'. Plaque, gingival and interdental bleeding indices were recorded at baseline, 8 weeks, 32 weeks and 56 weeks. A generalised linear mixed model was used to assess differences between groups.

Results

An interim analysis of results was performed with 40 patients recruited and 85% of data collected. The overall mean differences between the groups were as follows: plaque index = 0.199 (P = 0.88, 95% confidence interval [CI] -0.24 to 0.27); gingival index = -0.008 (P = 0.94, 95% CI -0.22 to 0.20); and interdental bleeding index = 5.60 (P = 0.563, 95% CI -13.22 to 24.42). No statistical difference between the two groups was found for any variable. The trial was stopped at this point.

Conclusions

In terms of oral hygiene, our study did not find evidence to support the claim of benefit of using a Waterpik^® in addition to a manual toothbrush for patients wearing fixed orthodontic appliances.

SUBMITTER: Tyler D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10693741 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature