Effects of an oral health education program for pregnant women.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the gain in knowledge of oral health after education to pregnant women on dental anticipatory guidance and to determine how much of this information pregnant women retain over time. METHODS: The study consisted of 40 pregnant women. Inclusion criteria included: (1) between the ages of 21-40; (2) in 12-40th week of pregnancy; and (3) spoke English. During the first visit, all subjects were asked to complete a pre-test (24 questions), watch a ten minute presentation and complete the post-test (24 questions). During the second visit (4 weeks/1 month after the first visit), all subjects were asked to complete the follow-up test (24 questions). RESULTS: All of the tests (pre, post and follow-up) were scored and used to determine the changes in knowledge of the pregnant women after the presentation. The mean age for all 40 pregnant women was 26.88 (SD +/- 4.3) years and the mean number of weeks pregnant was 25.2 at the first visit. The mean overall correct scores for the pre-test was 12.9 (53.75%), post-test was 20.9 (87.08%) and follow-up test was 20.17 (84.05%). These overall scores show an improvement of 8 (33.33%, p<0.05) questions correct from the first to second test, and a digression of 0.73 (3.08%) questions correct from the second to third test. CONCLUSIONS: These observations indicate that in this study population pregnant women's knowledge improved after a presentation on dental anticipatory guidance. These observations also indicate that after four weeks, pregnant women were able to retain most of the information, as only a slight digression in overall scores was noticed from the follow-up test to the post-test.

Comparison of naïve and expert subjects in the assessment of small color differences.

Determination of the role of subject experience in the development of accurate color difference formulas is of potentially critical concern. As part of a larger multivariable experiment investigating the minimum inter- and intra-subject variability possible among a set of subjects, a study was conducted to compare the performance of 25 novice versus 25 expert visual assessors for a set of 27 pairs of colored textile samples using a controlled psychophysical method and several statistical techniques including t-test, ANOVA, and Standardized Residual Sum of Squares (STRESS) functions. Experts exhibited approximately 43% higher visual difference ratings than novice subjects when assessing sample pairs having small color differences. In addition, a statistically significant difference at the 95% confidence level was found between the judgments made by novice and expert assessors. According to the STRESS function, however, CMC(1:1) and CIEDE2000(1:1) color difference formulas do not show a significant difference in performance when the visual data from either group of subjects are compared.

Unique-hue stimulus selection using Munsell color chips.

Presented are intra- and inter-observer variability data comparing the unique-hue (UH) selections of sets of males and females, using two different visual experimental procedures incorporating Munsell color chips of varying hue but identical chroma and value. Although 34 of the 40 Munsell hue chips were selected by at least one observer as a UH, selections were generally repeatable. In addition, intra-observer variability represented approximately 15% of inter-observer variability. Also, when only three consecutive Munsell chips were viewed at a time, females showed significantly larger intra-observer variability than males, especially when making unique green selections. However, variability in UH selections was statistically insignificant between males and females when all Munsell chips were viewed simultaneously. No correlation was found between UH selections or intra-observer variability and hue ordering ability.