Should dental hygienists replace dental directors in screening high-needs children?

The purpose of this research was to determine whether dental hygienists are as effective as dental directors in screening high-needs children who require emergency care.

In 2000, the Community Dentistry Health Services Research Unit (CDHSRU) at the University of Toronto completed a prospective cohort study to determine whether care proposed by dental directors exposed to evidence-based practices was significantly different from the care provided by dental hygienists who screened children enrolled in the provincially mandated Children in Need of Treatment (CINOT) program.

The dental directors and dental hygienists each prepared a treatment plan for the 71 children enrolled in this study. These plans were analyzed using a paired t-test model after being translated into relative value units (RVU). It was determined that there was no statistically significant difference between the overall dental treatment proposed by the dental hygienists and the treatment proposed by the dental directors (p=.749). A similar analysis stratified by subject site and by service type also showed no significant differences.

The results suggest that dental hygienists are equally as effective as dental directors in screening high-needs children and may be capable of assuming the role of first point of contact for children within high-need dental programs.