The influence of social status and prior explanation on parental attitudes toward behavior management techniques

The purpose of this study was to determine whether parental social status influences preference toward behavior management techniques used during dental treatment of children. One hundred and twenty-two parents from two private practices and one institutional site completed a questionnaire and rated eight commonly used behavior management techniques. These techniques were tell-show-do, nitrous oxide/oxygen, Papoose Board (Olympic Medical Group, Seattle, WA), voice control, hand-over-mouth (HOM), oral premedication, active restraint, and general anesthesia (GA). Half the parents viewed these eight techniques on a videotape which contained prior explanation for each technique (experimental group). The other half (control group) viewed the same techniques on videotape, but without prior explanations. Parents indicated their degree of acceptability by marking a line on a visual analogue scale (VAS, scored from 1 to 99). A score below 50 was considered acceptable. The parents were divided into "high" and "low" social status groups. Significant differences for HOM and GA were noted between mean scores of the experimental and control groups for both "high" and "low" social status groups; the control groups were less accepting except for GA in the "low" group where the reverse was true (P < 0.05). Techniques judged least acceptable were HOM, GA, Papoose Board and oral premedication. Parental acceptance of individual techniques varied greatly, suggesting the importance of informed consent irrespective of social status.