Testing a Multi-behavioral Intervention to Improve Oral Health Behaviors in the Pediatric Dental Surgery Population

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Project Summary. Vulnerable (Medicaid enrolled, low-income, minoritized, urban/rural resident) children are at high risk for severe early childhood caries (S-ECC). Treating young children for S-ECC often requires dental surgery under general anesthesia (DGA). Unfortunately, surgery is not an effective cure. A DGA event does not address underlying oral health behaviors such as tooth brushing and diet, so caries commonly recurs. Changing oral health behaviors is challenging, as parents struggle with concurrent life stressors. However, parents want to change their child’s oral health behaviors and identify that they need help to enact change at the time of a DGA event. We propose a behavioral parenting intervention to support oral health behavior change within families whose children experience the most severe disease burden at a critical point in their child’s oral health. We will develop and test the efficacy of PROTECT (Preventing Recurrent Operations Targeting Early Childhood Caries Treatment), a community health worker (CHW)-delivered, behavioral parenting intervention for preschool-aged children scheduled for DGA. The primary outcomes are frequency of tooth brushing and percent of total calorie intake from added sugar. The first session will occur in person at the time of surgery (60 minutes) and the remaining 10 sessions (30 minutes) will be delivered by phone to address barriers to engagement. The intervention will take place over a 6-month period, starting with the surgical event, with assessments measuring primary and secondary outcomes at baseline, 2 weeks, 6 months and 12-month follow up. Our investigators are experts in clinical (anesthesiology, dentistry, pediatrics, psychology, nutrition) and scientific realms (randomized controlled trials, management and analysis of longitudinal behavioral, psychosocial, and clinical outcomes, nutrition science, development of clinical interventions, dissemination and implementation). During the UG3 phase, we aim to develop PROTECT and test for feasibility and acceptability. The development of PROTECT will be informed by behavior change mechanisms of Social Cognitive Theory (SCT; e.g., positive parenting, self-efficacy, knowledge) and evidence-based behavioral parenting and dietary interventions, along with stakeholder (caregivers, providers, CHWs) input. We will identify barriers to recruitment, retention, intervention delivery, and outcome measurements. During the UH3 phase, we will test the efficacy of PROTECT compared to Usual Care (UC) to improve oral health behaviors. Participants will be randomized to receive PROTECT (n = 210) or UC (n = 210). We hypothesize that participants in the PROTECT group will increase tooth brushing and decrease added sugar intake to a greater degree than those in the UC group. Secondary outcomes and hypothesized SCT mechanisms of intervention effectiveness will also be tested. As an exploratory aim, saliva samples will be collected to assess changes to the oral microbiome from baseline to 6 months. This work fits within our broad research goal to improve children’s oral health, starting with the surgical population and potentially extending to children and adults within households.