Impact of Toothbrush Age on Clinical Indicators of Oral Health, a Protocol for a Systematic Review

Abstract

Background: Dental caries is the most common chronic untreated disease worldwide. The simplest and most important factor in preventing dental caries is maintaining oral hygiene and removing microbial plaque using a toothbrush. Despite the relationship between toothbrush filament wear and plaque removal effectiveness as a potentially important factor in maintaining oral health, there is little objective standard evidence as to 1) what constitutes a worn-out brush and 2) the degree of loss in plaque removal effectiveness due to brush wear. Contradictions in the results of studies on toothbrushing and the loss of its effectiveness in removing plaque based on the time spent using the toothbrush have led to conflicting recommendations for changing toothbrushes after different periods. While some studies generally question the relationship between toothbrush age and effectiveness. The lack of comprehensive evidence in this area necessitates a structured review study.Methods: We will search the electronic databases ISI, Scopus, and PubMed to find related articles. Our main inclusion criterion is Clinical trial and observational studies investigating manual toothbrush longevity in the natural toothbrush-worn model on each objective indicator of oral health (including plaque removal and gingival indices ...). All funded citations are entered into the Endnote software. the full texts of potentially relevant studies are prepared. study selection and extracting the data will be performed by two reviewers. Also, the studies quality will be assessed. The findings will be displayed using figures, summary tables and narrative summaries. If the similarity of studies and their quality is desirable, meta-analysis will be performed. We will assess the heterogeneity on the bias of the magnitude of heterogeneity variance parameter. We are also going to conduct subgroup analysis and sensitivity analysis if needed.Discussion: The final systematic review highlights the gaps in the available evidence about the effectiveness of toothbrush longevity on each oral indices to provide the best recommendation for toothbrush renewal periods. Registration: The review subject has been submitted in PROSPERO database