HBM for Empowering Parental Toothbrushing and Sugar Intake Control

Not Applicable

• Conditions: Health Behavior; Early Childhood Caries; Mobile Phone Use
• Interventions: Behavioral: Standard text message; Behavioral: HBM-based text messages

• Registration Number: NCT04665219
• Lead Sponsor: The University of Hong Kong

Brief Summary

It has been recognized that oral health education for parents is critical for the prevention of early childhood caries (ECC). Few parents practiced caries prevention procedures for their children in daily life, though. Inspired by Health Belief Model (HBM) and using text messaging as a vehicle, a novel intervention scheme will be developed in this study. The objective of the present randomized clinical trial (RCT) is to investigate the effectiveness of the HBM-based behavioral intervention using text message to reduce early childhood caries of children at age 4 through promoting the parental oral health care behaviors (toothbrushing and sugar intake control) for their young children compared to conventional oral health education. This RCT will recruit child-parent dyads in 26-36 child help centers or kindergartens with nursery classes located in Hong Kong. A total of 518-628 dyads will be recruited and randomly allocated into the test or control group with a 1:1 ratio. For parents in the test group, the intervention will consist of a set of HBM-based text messages sent regularly in the following 48 weeks. A standard text message will be sent to the parents in the control group. The primary outcome will be dental caries measured by dmft/dmfs of the children at 4 years old.

By HBM-based intervention via a low-cost text messaging vehicle, it should be able to help the parents establish proper oral health behaviors for their children and safeguard the oral health of children in Hong Kong.

Detailed Description

Not available

Basic Information
|
Recruitment & Eligibility
|
Study & Design
|
Trial Locations

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2020-09-01
• Study First Submitted: 2020-12-04
• Study First Submitted QC: 2020-12-09
• Study First Posted: 2020-12-11
• Status Verified: 2021-03
• Last Update Submitted: 2021-03-25
• Last Update Posted: 2021-03-30
• Primary Completion: 2023-02-28
• Study Completion: 2023-02-28

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: UNKNOWN
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 518

Inclusion Criteria

• young child aged18-30 months
• young children not having any severe medical conditions complicating oral health and dental examination
• parents having a mobile phone with certain Apps to receive the text messages in time (e.g. WhatsApp or WeChat)
• parents who can read Chinese

Read More

Exclusion Criteria

• families that have been participating in another oral health promotion program

Read More

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Control group	Standard text message	Only receive a standard message.
Test group	HBM-based text messages	Receive HBM-based messages.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
dmft/dmfs scores of the children at 4 years old	The children will be examined at the 24 months follow up. The tooth status of the erupted primary teeth would be assessed by careful visual inspection.	The dental caries measured by dmft/dmfs (number of teeth/surfaces that are decayed missing or filled) of the children at aged 4 years (42-54 months).

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
average frequency of intake of sugary snack/drink per day	24 months	Change in parental oral health behavior over the study period, 2 times or less frequent as preferred
oral hygiene status using the Visible Plaque Index	24 months	The change in presence or absence of plaque on the buccal and lingual surfaces of all primary teeth over the study period.
average frequency of parental toothbrushing per day	24 months	Change in parental oral health behavior over the study period, 2 times as preferred

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

The University of Hong Kong; 🇨🇳 Hong Kong, China