The Impact of Anticipatory Guidance on Early Childhood Caries: a Quasi-experimental Study

University of Malaya

Status: Completed

Conditions: Dental Caries in Children

Treatments: Other: Dental health education

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03478748

DFCO1505/0005P

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study aimed to compare the impact of anticipatory guidance on the caries incidence of 2-3-year-old preschool children and their 4-6-year-old siblings, as well as on their mothers' oral health literacy, as compared to the conventional Ministry of Health (MOH) programme.

Full description

This quasi-experimental study was conducted at two government dental clinics in Batu Pahat District, Malaysia. The samples comprised of 478 mother-child-sibling trios (233 families in the intervention group, and 245 families in the control group). An oral health package named the Family Dental Wellness Programme (FDWP) was designed to provide anticipatory guidance to the intervention group at six-month intervals over three years. The control group received the standard MOH oral health education activities. The impact of FDWP on net caries increment, caries prevented fraction, and mother's oral health literacy was assessed after three years of intervention.

Enrollment: 478 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 2 to 6 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Children between the age of 2-3 years old
• Older sibling aged 4 to 6 years categorized as having high caries risk based on a Caries Risk Assessment tool adapted from the American Association of Paediatric Dentistry
• Mothers who were willing to participate in the study

Exclusion criteria

• Medically compromised children

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Non-Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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478 participants in 2 patient groups

one-to-one dental health education

Active Comparator group

Description:

Conventional oral health education programme that mainly focuses at child level, which has been the normal practice at the Ministry of Health, were provided to the control participants.

Treatment:

Other: Dental health education

anticipatory guidance technique

Experimental group

Description:

Anticipatory guidance technique were applied where appropriate dental health education (according to the children's milestones) were provided to mothers and their children.

Treatment:

Other: Dental health education