Caries
Jennifer Chou, DMD (she/her/hers)
Resident
NewYork-Presbyterian Kids / Columbia
Columbia University Medical Center
New York, New York, United States
Christie Lumsden, PhD, MS, RD, CDN
College of Dental Medicine (Columbia University)
Richard Yoon, DDS
College of Dental Medicine (Columbia University)
Purpose: To investigate the acceptability and feasibility of telehealth nutritional counseling to improve pediatric oral health outcomes by assessing parental perception and compliance with intervention protocol.
Methods: Parent/child dyads (n=79) were recruited at dental appointments between July-December 2022 to participate in a prospective interventional pilot study promoting low-cariogenic dietary behavior recommendations delivered over three telehealth-nutrition counseling sessions. Eligibility criteria included parents over the age of 18 with children aged 2-6 years with early childhood caries (≥1 decayed, missing due to decay, or filled tooth). Primary outcomes are telehealth compliance rates (defined as completion of one, two or all three Zoom sessions) and secondary outcomes are potential correlations between clinical history (i.e., dmft score, operating room and sedation history, complexity of dental work completed and dental clinic no show rates) and telehealth compliance rates.
Results: Among the 79 parent/child dyads enrolled and fully consented to participate in the study, 48% (n=38) were female with an average age of 4.6 years. Despite successful recruitment and enrollment, few participants were able to successfully complete one session, yielding a small sample and survey response rates. While no significant clinical associations were determined, data suggests that some predictive factors of parents who completed at least one telenutrition session were more likely to have a lower dental clinic no-show rate under 10% (p=0.07) and more likely to have a history of SDF treatment (p=0.10) than parents who completed zero sessions. The dental team and nutrition interventionists worked in separate locations, posing communication challenges; thus future study designs should seek to mitigate this limitation. Future studies are needed to determine the feasibility and parental acceptance of telehealth nutrition counseling sessions in a dental setting, which may support a future interdisciplinary approach to caries treatment and management.