Dental plaque is a biofilm of microorganisms that present naturally on the exposed tooth surface; it is the main etiological factor for many periodontal conditions and other oral health issues and its regular removal from the oral cavity can prevent many periodontal problems. Despite several experiments using herbal oral care products to reduce dental plaque or gingivitis, the findings remain inconclusive. We performed a systematic literature search on PubMed and Cochrane Library for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) dating from 2001 up to and including the year 2021. The keywords and Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms comprised combinations of the following: herbal, clove oil, peppermint oil, ginger, basil, ajwain, betel leaf extract, neem, lavender, non-herbal, chlorhexidine, fluorides, hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen fluoride, stannous fluoride, and mouthwashes. Each of the titles that the search elicited was screened and duplicates were removed from the gathered results. The full-text versions of the remaining articles were downloaded and examined by title and abstract. Handsearching was not carried out. We initially identified 21 studies; 14 studies, which did not fulfill the selection criteria, were excluded. All the included studies reported a reduction in plaque index (PI) and gingival index (GI) scores in both herbal and non-herbal groups. Two studies reported the superiority of the non-herbal mouthwash over the herbal one while five of the studies showed no significant difference in PI and GI scores between herbal and non-herbal mouthwash, implying equal efficacy of both, i.e., Triphala, aloe vera, tea tree, and polyherbal groups like Zingiber officinale, Rosmarinus officinalis, and Calendula officinalis, and chlorhexidine. Current research suggests that herbal mouthwashes are as effective as non-herbal mouthwashes for reducing dental plaque in the short term; however, the evidence is based on low-quality trials.
Early childhood caries is prevalent disease worldwide involving 1.76 billion children even though it is preventable with proper measures. Early childhood caries not only cause local discomfort but also hampers overall growth and development of child. Early childhood caries requires invasive treatments as it progress to later stages so early intervention is helpful to prevent these invasive procedures like restoration and extraction. Various procedures such as fluoride application, oral hygiene maintenance, motivational interviewing, diet counselling, oral health education programs are used for prevention, among them motivational interviewing is the emerging modality for prevention. Motivational interviewing is client centred counselling approach which elicits the behavior change by helping clients to explore and resolve ambivalence. It was first introduced for treating alcoholism now it is implemented in various fields for management of disease such as diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular diseases, reducing sexual behavior and pain management. In some of the researches it is found that the preventive measures accompanied with motivational interviewing are more effective than the conventional health education and intervention. Though there are many researches are present on the motivational interviewing in prevention of early childhood caries, better designed and reported interventions are still needed.
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