An oral health promotion program for an urban minority population of preschool children

Abstract

The objective of this project was to design, implement and evaluate an oral health promotion program for inner-city Vietnamese preschool children in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The project comprised of four general phases: information-gathering, project planning, project implementation, and project evaluation. The information-gathering phase of the project demonstrated extensive tooth decay in young children, bottle use during the day and during sleep-time long past recommended weaning age, and a belief of many parents that primary teeth were not important. Based on this information, the project planning committee designed a program that featured one-to-one counseling supported by community-wide activities. A Vietnamese lay health counselor provided counseling to mothers with telephone follow-up that coincided with scheduled infant immunization visits to a twice-monthly Child Health Clinic for Vietnamese families. At all the follow-up assessment clinics scheduled over the 7-year duration of this continuing project, mothers who had had more than one counseling visit reported significantly less use of sleep-time and daytime bottles for their children, and their children demonstrated significantly reduced prevalence of caries compared to similarly aged children at baseline. One-to-one counseling with regular follow-up provided by a lay person of similar background and culture to the participants is an effective way to facilitate adoption of healthy behaviors and to improve oral health of children.

Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices of Mothers Related to their Oral Health Status of 6-12 Years Old Children in Bhilai City, Chhattisgarh, India

“…On the other hand, 74% strongly agreed that milk teeth did not require good care as it is going to fall away. Similar findings were given in studies done by Chhabra and Chhabra (2012) and Harrison and Wong (2003). They reported that parents believed that as primary teeth are present in the mouth only for a short period of time and since they will be replaced by their successor teeth, so taking care of the primary teeth is not necessary.…”

Children’s Oral Health Assessment, Prevention, and Treatment

“…38 Clinical studies involving brief counseling have reported a potential benefit with the use of this technique. 39,40 Weinstein and colleagues, 41 in a 2004 study, compared traditional health education (pamphlet and video) with a brief motivational interview counseling intervention (pamphlet and video plus 1 counseling session and 6 follow-up telephone calls from a lay health counselor). Results after 1 and 2 years showed a positive impact for the brief counseling group.…”

Evaluation of a preventive educational program for malocclusions: 7-year study

“…In these regular appointments, guardians were asked if their children abandoned the habit; otherwise, they received individual counseling to reinforce the need for habit abandonment, insofar as individual counseling is an effective way of promoting behavioral changes in parents and improving oral health conditions in children 12 . Children's guardians, who did not report abandonment of the oral habit in a regular appointment, were invited to continue attending the PPM meetings.…”