Summary of findings 3. One oral healthcare intervention compared with another oral healthcare intervention for people after stroke.

Oral health care intervention compared with another oral health care intervention for stroke
Patient or population: adults with stroke Settings: hospital based Intervention: oral care intervention Comparison: another oral health care intervention
Outcomes	Relative effect (95% CI)	No of participants (trials)	Direction of effect	Quality of the evidence (GRADE)	Comments
Dental plaque (Analysis 3.1)	MD –0.04 (–0.33 to 0.25)	61 participants (1 trial; Ab Malik 2018)	No evidence of benefit or harm	⊕⊕⊝⊝a,b Low	Assessed immediately postintervention (3 months). Measured using the Silness and Loe Plaque Index (Silness 1964) (scale 0–3, where 0 = absence of plaque and 3 = abundant presence of plaque).
Denture plaque	—	—	—	—	We found no studies.
Presence of oral disease	—	—	—	—	We found no studies.
Presence of related infection: pneumonia	—	—	—	—	We found no studies.
Stroke survivor and providers' knowledge and attitudes to oral health care	—	—	—	—	We found no studies.
GRADE Working Group grades of evidence High quality: further research is very unlikely to change our confidence in the estimate of effect. Moderate quality: further research is likely to have an important impact on our confidence in the estimate of effect and may change the estimate. Low quality: further research is very likely to have an important impact on our confidence in the estimate of effect and is likely to change the estimate. Very low quality: we are very uncertain about the estimate.

CI: confidence interval; MD: mean difference.
^aDowngraded one level as there were serious limitations identified in the risk of bias.
^bDowngraded one level because of imprecision.