Abstract
Oral bacteria counts are used as an assessment index for oral health care. In this study, we examine the effect of pressure applied to the swab in order to standardize the collection of swab samples.
Samples were collected from the tongues of 35 healthy adults. The swabs were attached to a device to achieve sample collection pressures of 5, 20 and 40 g. Bacterial counts were made on each swab by a bacteria counter using the dielectrophoretic impedance measurement method, and compared.
The results showed that higher bacterial counts were obtained with higher sample collection pressures (p<0.01); further, bacterial counts were significantly different for swabs taken at sampling pressures of 5 and 20 g and 5 and 40 g (p<0.01). As variations in sampling pressure applied to the tongue are inherent in manual swabbing, it is necessary to standardize sample collection pressure for measuring oral bacterial counts as an assessment index. Considering the stability of swabbing and the patients' comfort, pressure of 20 g is suitable for sampling from the tongue.
