BackgroundA community-based public health program to provide a dental home for women covered by the Oregon Health Plan (Medicaid) in Klamath County, Oregon USA was instituted with the long-term goal to promote preventive oral care for both mothers and their new infants provided by dental managed care companies.MethodsAs part of the evaluation of the program, children in Klamath and comparable non-program counties were examined in their 2nd year of life to begin to determine if benefits accrued to the offspring of the mothers in Klamath County.ResultsEighty-five and 58.9% of the children were caries free in the Klamath and comparison county samples, respectively (RR = 1.48, 95% CI 1.13, 1.93). The mean (SD) number of teeth with any decay was .75 (2.5) in the test population and 1.6 (2.5) in the comparison population (t = 2.08, p = .04).ConclusionsThe assessment showed that children of mothers in the Klamath County program were about one and a half times more likely to be caries free than children in the comparison counties. Additional controlled studies are being undertaken.

Objective: This paper describes a community-based intervention to provide a dental home for women covered by Medicaid in Klamath County, Oregon. In 2001, 8.8

BackgroundFidelity assessments are integral to intervention research but few published trials report these processes in detail. We included plans for fidelity monitoring in the design of a community-based intervention trial.MethodsThe study design was a randomized clinical trial of an intervention provided to low-income women to increase utilization of dental care during pregnancy (mother) or the postpartum (child) period. Group assignment followed a 2 × 2 factorial design in which participants were randomly assigned to receive either brief Motivational Interviewing (MI) or Health Education (HE) during pregnancy (prenatal) and then randomly reassigned to one of these groups for the postpartum intervention. The study setting was four county health departments in rural Oregon State, USA. Counseling was standardized using a step-by-step manual. Counselors were trained to criteria prior to delivering the intervention and fidelity monitoring continued throughout the implementation period based on audio recordings of counselor-participant sessions. The Yale Adherence and Competence Scale (YACS), modified for this study, was used to code the audio recordings of the counselors’ delivery of both the MI and HE interventions. Using Interclass Correlation Coefficients totaling the occurrences of specific MI counseling behaviors, ICC for prenatal was .93, for postpartum the ICC was .75. Participants provided a second source of fidelity data. As a second source of fidelity data, the participants completed the Feedback Questionnaire that included ratings of their satisfaction with the counselors at the completion of the prenatal and post-partum interventions.ResultsCoding indicated counselor adherence to MI protocol and variation among counselors in the use of MI skills in the MI condition. Almost no MI behaviors were found in the HE condition. Differences in the length of time to deliver intervention were found; as expected, the HE intervention took less time. There were no differences between the overall participants’ satisfaction ratings of the HE and MI sessions by individual counselor or overall (p > .05).ConclusionsTrial design, protocol specification, training, and continuous supervision led to a high degree of treatment fidelity for the counseling interventions in this randomized clinical trial and will increase confidence in the interpretation of the trial findings.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01120041

This study tested a behavioral intervention to increase dental attendance among rural Oregonian low-income women and their children. It utilized a multi-site, single-blind, randomized trial design. Four hundred women were randomized into one of four conditions to receive prenatal or postpartum motivational interviewing/counseling (MI) or prenatal or postpartum health education (HE). Counselors also functioned as patient navigators. Primary outcomes were dental attendance during pregnancy for the mother and for the child by age 18 months. Attendance was obtained from the Oregon Division of Medical Assistance Programs and participant self-report. Statewide self-reported utilization data were obtained from the Oregon Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS). Maternal attendance was 92% in the prenatal MI group and 94% in the prenatal HE group (RR = 0.98; 95% CI = 0.93–1.04). Children’s attendance was 54% in postpartum MI group and 52% in the postpartum HE group (RR = 1.03; 95% CI = 0.82–1.28). Compared to statewide PRAMS, attendance was higher during pregnancy for study mothers (45% statewide; 95% CI = 40–50%) and for their children by 24 months (36% statewide; 95% CI = 27–44%). MI did not lead to greater attendance when compared to HE alone and cost more to implement. High attendance may be attributable to the counselors’ patient navigator function. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier NCT01120041

BackgroundRural, low-income pregnant women and their children are at high risk for poor oral health and have low utilization rates of dental care. The Baby Smiles study was designed to increase low-income pregnant women’s utilization of dental care, increase young children’s dental care utilization, and improve home oral health care practices.Methods/designBaby Smiles was a five-year, four-site randomized intervention trial with a 2 × 2 factorial design. Four hundred participants were randomly assigned to one of four treatment arms in which they received either brief Motivational Interviewing (MI) or health education (HE) delivered during pregnancy and after the baby was born. In the prenatal study phase, the interventions were designed to encourage dental utilization during pregnancy. After childbirth, the focus was to utilize dental care for the infant by age one. The two primary outcome measures were dental utilization during pregnancy or up to two months postpartum for the mother, and preventive dental utilization by 18 months of age for the child. Medicaid claims data will be used to assess the primary outcomes. Questionnaires were administered at enrollment and 3, 9 and 18 months postpartum (study end) to assess mediating and moderating factors.DiscussionThis trial can help define the most effective way to provide one-on-one counseling to pregnant women and new mothers regarding visits to the dentist during pregnancy and after the child is born. It supports previous work demonstrating the potential of reducing mother-to-child transmission of Streptococcus mutans and the initiation of dental caries prevention in early childhood.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov Identifier NCT01120041