To determine the effectiveness of reminding patients in maintaining good oral hygiene via whatsapp messages compared with the conventional text messaging Malik Sameer Ahmad, Kodopi Raja, Laxmikanth S.M., Gudala Pooja Department of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics, AECS Maaruti College of Dental Sciences and Research Centre, Bangalore, India Online published on 6 September, 2019. Abstract To determine the effectiveness of reminding patients in maintaining good oral hygiene via Whatsapp messages compared with the conventional text messaging. In this randomized, controlled clinical trial, thirty four orthodontic patients were assigned to two groups of Whatsapp and text message. Patients in both the groups were reminded twice each week for 5 weeks and one reminder message for 8 weeks thereafter. Oral hygiene compliance was measured using bleeding index (BI), modified gingival index (MGI), and plaque index (PI) at the start (T0), at 5 weeks after baseline (T1), and at 8 weeks after the start (T2). The Whatsapp group had highly significant lower BI, MGI, and PI scores than the text message group at T2. The use of Whatsapp messaging over the text message reminders, sent by the orthodontist, was more effective for maintaining oral hygiene in orthodontic patients. Top Keywords Oral hygiene, Whatsapp, Text message, Orthodontics, Plaque. Top |