Evaluating Two Oral Health Video Interventions with Early Head Start Families

Abstract

Poor oral health in early childhood can have long-term consequences, and parents often are unaware of the importance of preventive measures for infants and toddlers. Children in rural, low-income families suffer disproportionately from the effects of poor oral health. Participants were 91 parents of infants and toddlers enrolled in Early Head Start (EHS) living in rural Hawai'i, USA. In this quasi-experimental design, EHS home visitors were assigned to use either a didactic or family-centered video with parents they served. Home visitors reviewed short segments of the assigned videos with parents over an eight-week period. Both groups showed significant prepost gains on knowledge and attitudes/behaviors relating to early oral health as well as self-reported changes in family oral health routines at a six-week followup. Controlling for pretest levels, parents in the family-centered video group showed larger changes in attitudes/behaviors at posttest and a higher number of positive changes in family oral health routines at followup. Results suggest that family-centered educational videos are a promising method for providing anticipatory guidance to parents regarding early childhood oral health. Furthermore, establishing partnerships between dental care, early childhood education, and maternal health systems offers a model that broadens potential reach with minimal cost.

Integrating Maternal and Children's Oral Health Promotion into Nursing and Midwifery Practice- A Systematic Review

“…[24–28, 32, 33, 35, 36, 39, 40] Four trials, however, were “quasi-experimental” with a pre-test/post-test design [20, 21, 34, and 37], two had equivalent [22, 29] and one had non-equivalent comparison group . [38] One included study was historically controlled non-randomized [23] and another was ecologic.…”

“…Seven home visiting programs [20, 23, 26&27, 36, 37, 38, 39] were reviewed as well whereas one intervention included both home visits and consultations at well-baby clinic. [22] Two studies [21, 38] reported including both urban and rural settings in their recruitment, five [23, 30, 34, 35, 37] were restricted to rural sites and three [25, 26, 28] to urbanized or metropolitan areas. Table 1 …”

“…[30] In all included trials, the age range of the enrolled children ranged from zero to five years; only five programs [20, 22, 24, 26&27, 28] started immediately after childbirth whereas one study [38] divided the participants into two different age groups(0–2 and 3–5 years). Table 1 In some of the included studies [21, 23, 30, 31, and 37] the recruited children were already enrolled in existing programs delivering early childhood healthcare services such as Medicaid, Early Head start, or Women Infant Care Programs. As revealed from extracted data, the majority of the reviewed interventions targeted vulnerable underserved low-income populations.…”

“…As revealed from extracted data, the majority of the reviewed interventions targeted vulnerable underserved low-income populations. [20,21,23,25,26&27,29,32&33,35,37,40]…”

“…[21, 22, 29–33, 40] In all the reviewed interventions, oral health education was a basic component provided by adopting various approaches. Some of the participants viewed didactic videos [25, 28, and 37]; Brickhouse et al [23] used oversized models to demonstrate teeth cleansing techniques, other interventions disseminated information via leaflets, pamphlets, or booklets and Kressin et al [29] used role-play exercises to deliver the message. In ten trials oral health kits including toothbrush, paste and feeding cups were given to enrollees in the intervention groups.…”