Top‐down self‐regulation processes as determinants of oral hygiene self‐care behaviour: A systematic scoping review

Abstract

Objectives: Understanding the psychological mechanisms that moderate oral hygiene self-care behavior is anticipated to benefit efforts to change such behavior.Top-down self-regulatory (TSR) processes represent one group of relatively unexplored, yet potentially influential, moderating factors. This systematic scoping review aims to explore whether there is evidence that TSR processes moderate oral hygiene self-care engagement within the current literature. Methods: CINAHL, The Cochrane Library, Embase, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Scopus, and Web of Science databases were searched up to April 2020 for articles that compared measures of TSR processes (such as self-monitoring, inhibitory control, and task switching) to oral hygiene self-care behavior, or tested interventions that aimed to change or support TSR processes. Results: The search returned 6626 articles, with 25 included in the final sample. Weak evidence supported both the role of TSR processes as moderators of interdental cleaning and the value of interventions targeting self-monitoring of interdental cleaning behavior. Overall, methodological limitations rendered the findings somewhat inconclusive, with an absence of objective assessments of TSR capacity, and little focus on TSR processes as moderators of intervention effects. Conclusions:The inconclusive, but reasonably promising, findings point to the value of continuing to apply TSR processes within studies of oral hygiene behavior.Exploring why interdental cleaning appears more reliant on TSR processes than toothbrushing, employing objective neuropsychological assessment, and measuring TSR constructs within interventions targeting TSR processes, are encouraged. As a scoping review, the study hopes to generate interest and serve as a starting point for further investigation.

Executive functioning as a moderator of flossing behaviour among young adults: a temporal self-regulation theory perspective

“…Evaluating the strengths of the present study, utilising the BRIEF-A in conjunction with TST provided considerable methodological advantages. The BRIEF-A represented a more reliable and specific instrument to assess EF and neuropsychological self-regulation capacity than those previously applied to flossing behaviour (see Rogers et al, 2022 , for an overview). Similarly, TST provided a series of testable hypotheses addressing not only the relationship between EF and flossing, but also how EF-processes explain behavioural variability within a detailed framework accounting for theoretical covariates.…”

“…It was expected that global EF would moderate the relationship between intentions and behaviour within the TST framework, and that the overall model would explain a significant amount of variability in flossing frequency. Concerning individual EF processes, although there was little available evidence to guide hypotheses, it was expected that self-monitoring would represent a fitting definition of EF within a TST framework based on a positive relationship between self-monitoring interventions and oral hygiene behaviours (Newton & Asimakopoulou, 2015 ; Rogers et al, 2022 ).…”