Abstract
Dental caries prevalence was approximately 50% among school-aged children. The permanent
molars had a greater risk of caries than other permanent teeth. The effective measure to prevent caries
on pit and fissure was dental sealant. The objective of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of
three proactive sealant service deliveries implemented in Hat Yai Dental Health Service Network. This
study was a cross-sectional study. The samples consisted of 342 grade 1 students who received the
sealant on 2017 academic year recruited by multistage sampling. The methods were dental examination
for sealant retention and caries on the sealed surfaces and questionnaire survey asking tooth brushing
and eating behaviors. Data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics and logistic regression. The result
showed a 10.1% complete sealant retention rate and a 7.3% caries on seal surfaces after one year. There
was no association between type of service delivery and the sealant retention but the association with
caries on sealed surfaces was found. The probability of getting caries among children who received
dental sealant at sub-district health promoting hospital were 3.7 times (95% CI 1.9-7.3) compared with
hospital clinic and 2.6 times (95% CI 1.4-4.8) compared with mobile dental clinic. Overall, the effectiveness
of the sealant in this study was very low. All three proactive service deliveries had to be improved
to provide the good quality of dental sealant services.
