"Strong Teeth" intervention

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  "Strong Teeth" - an early phase evaluation of a complex oral health intervention delivered by NHS dental teams to parents of young children

• IRAS ID

  248833

• Contact name

  Peter Day

• Contact email

  p.f.day@leeds.ac.uk

• Duration of Study in the UK

  1 years, 0 months, 1 days

• Research summary

  Dental teams need to be able to help parents to adopt appropriate home-based oral health behaviours, to optimise the benefits of dental attendance for young children (0-5 years old). Dental professionals, the local community and researchers at the University of Leeds, have collaborated with Oral-B to develop “Strong Teeth” (an oral health promotion intervention) to be delivered in the one-to-one setting of general dental practice. This early phase study will explore the acceptability of the intervention to parents and the dental team trained in the intervention, as well as explore changes in oral health behaviour, how the intervention works, a the suitability of providing children aged 3-5 years old with an Oral-B electric toothbrush.
  In areas of Yorkshire (Bradford, Leeds and the surrounding areas) where children are at high risk of dental caries, 20 parents of children aged 0-2 years old and 20 parents of children aged 3-5 years old who are about to attend the dentist for their child’s regular check-up, will be recruited to the study. We will recruit parents and children attending 4-8 different dental practices.

  In the home setting, consent and baseline (starting point) oral health behaviour data will be collected. A researcher will ask validated questions to parents about their oral health behaviours, including child toothbrushing and dietary behaviours. Three different measures of toothbrushing will be collected and compared with parental self-reports.
  The parent/child will then attend their dental visit and receive the "Strong Teeth" intervention, delivered by the dental team. At 2 weeks and 2-3 months following the "Strong Teeth" intervention, further self-reported and measures of oral health behaviours will be collected in the parent/child’s home. This data will be supplemented with qualitative interviews with parents (2-3 months following the intervention) and with dental team members (following delivery of the intervention).

• REC name

  Yorkshire & The Humber - Bradford Leeds Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  18/YH/0326

• Date of REC Opinion

  4 Sep 2018

• REC opinion

  Favourable Opinion