Acceptance and Efficacy of a Digital Application in Promoting Evidence Based Oral Hygiene Knowledge Among Parents to Control Early Childhood Caries

This two arm randomized cohort study is being undertaken at the Department of Preventive and Pediatric Dentistry at the University of Greifswald. Assessment of eligibility and application of intervention will be carried out by a single investigator (JH).

This study is being conducted in total in two phases. In the first, pilot phase - the digital application design, acceptance and parental perception will be assessed with the help of a questionnaire. In the second phase a two-arm controlled randomized clinical trial (RCT) will be conducted to assess the acceptance and efficacy of the application in improving parental knowledge, behaviour and self-reported practices/attitudes related to the oral health preventive measures. Clinically oral hygiene status and caries status of the participant children will be recorded too. The total appointment duration will also be measured.

Intervention:

Pilot study: After receiving the informed consent from the parents, the FU-APP digital application was shown to the parents attending the Department of Preventive and Pediatric Dentistry at the University of Greifswald for an oral health check-up on a tablet-PC. Once the parents have gained the experience of using the application and viewing the content, they were asked to fill out a user-acceptability questionnaire.

RCT: After receiving the informed consent from the parents, the child was seated on the dental chair for a normal check-up and the parents received the intervention according to the assigned arm in the form of information delivered. The information was based on the oral hygiene recommendations that followed the current German guidelines (counselling in diet, brushing instructions, and fluoride varnish application, nutrition and behavioural habits) according to the age of the child (Bundeszahnärztekammer 2020). Subsequently, parents in the test arm received additional information with the help of the web-based application (FU-APP) on a tablet-PC. Once the parents gained the experience of using the application and viewing the content, they were asked to fill out a knowledge-testing questionnaire in order to compare the knowledge at a follow up appointment. Parents in the control group also were asked to fill out the Questionnaire. Clinically oral hygiene status and caries status of the participant child were also recorded. For both arms, the follow-up visits took place 2 to 4 weeks and 3 months later and consisted of the same sequence of steps for the given intervention with modified questions included in the questionnaire to compare the improvement in oral health knowledge and the clinical records were recorded again to assess the improvement levels in the oral hygiene status.