A comparative study to assess the effectiveness of turmeric mouth wash verses sodium bicarbonate mouth wash in oral mucositis patients at Saveetha Medical College and Hospital, Chennai

Background: Patients who receive radiation therapy for head and neck cancer usually develops oral lesions ranging from mild to life threatning levels. Radiation therapy induced oral mucositis causes oppurtunitic infections which also leads to sepsis. Oral mucositis leads to poor quality of life, affects economical status, family bonding, food intake and weight maintanence, disturbs mental status etc. Aims: The present study aims is to assess the effectiveness of turmeric mouthwash verses sodium bicarbonate mouth wash in oral mucositis patients at saveetha medical college and hospital, chennai.Methods: Quantitative research approach with quasi-experimental research design was used in this study with two group pre-test post-test design. Purposive sampling technique was used to select samples. Semi-structured interview was used to collect demographic data and WHO oral mucositis grading scale was to assess the level of oral mucositis who undergone radiation therapy. The patients were divided into experimental group I and experimental group II and administer turmeric mouthwash and sodium bicarbonate mouthwash for one week thrice a day. After a week, oral mucositis level was re-assessed.Results: The study results shows that the oral mucositis had shown statistically significant difference between the turmeric mouthwash and sodium bicarbonate mouthwash with calculated unpaired ‘t’ value of t = 5.7210 was found to statistically significant at p