Involvement of oral health educators among non-health professionals in oral health promotion is important in the prevention of oral diseases. This study was carried out to compare the level of oral health knowledge among pre-school teachers before and after oral health seminar. Pre-test data was collected by distributing questionnaire to pre-school teachers in Pasir Mas, who attended the seminar on “Oral Health” (n=33) and they were required to fill anonymously before the seminar started. The questions consisted of information on general background, perceived oral health status, oral health knowledge and the environment where they work. After two weeks, post-test data was collected using the same structured questionnaire and identification code was used to match the pre and post data. SPSS 11.5 was use for statistical analysis. Two out of 33 eligible preschool teachers were considered non-respondents due to absenteeism during the post-test data collection. The response rate was 94.0% (n = 31). The study shows a significant improvement in oral health knowledge among pre-school teachers in Pasir Mas, after seminar (p < 0.001) as compared to controls. Thus, we can conclude that the oral health programme (seminar) appeared effective at influencing oral health educator’s knowledge towards oral health.

The objective of this cross -sectional study is to determine the prevalence and pattern of herbal medicines use during pregnancy among women in Tumpat district, Kelantan. A total of 210 mothers were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. There were 108 mothers (51.4%) who used at least one type of herbal medicines during pregnancy. The most common herbal medicines used (63.9%) was coconut oil which was ingested during the third trimester of pregnancy only. The most common indication was (89.8%) to facilitate labour. The majority of users (79.6%) used herbal medicines during the third trimester of pregnancy only. Many of them (81.5%) believed that herbal medicines were effective to solve their health problems and fulfilled the indications for use. The older generation like parents and in laws (63.9%) were the most common persons who suggested using herbal medicines. The majority of them used the herbs only once (56.5%) and one type (87.0%) throughout the pregnancy. Further research focusing on local commonly used herbal medicines is to be carried out to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the herbs.

Introduction: One of the known factors that hindered smoking cessation is nicotine dependence. Measurement of the nicotine dependence is important to better understand cigarette smoking addiction dependence and ways to overcome it. Among methods of nicotine dependence measurement are self-reported Fagerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence (FTND) and biochemical assessment such as saliva cotinine. Biochemical assessment can be used to measure the accuracy of the self-reported measurement of nicotine dependence. Objective: To explore the correlation between the FTND and the saliva cotinine of the smokers in three different timeline. Methods: A total of 61 male smokers who currently smoke cigarette on daily basis were recruited. The study used the one-group pretest-posttest study design and the data were collected three times. The self-reported measurement were measured by using FTND and the biochemical assessment measured by using saliva cotinine from Saliva Bio oral swab (SOS) with the sensitivity of 0.15ng/ml. Data analysis was conducted by using Pearson correlation. Results: There was a significant association between the FTND score and saliva cotinine level of the smokers at baseline, second and third data collection (p=0.014, p=0.003, p<0.001). Conclusion: Both the self-reported measurement of nicotine dependence and biochemical assessment of the smokers are correlated and it could provide reliable information of the nicotine dependence.